


Nights

by youremyqueen



Series: nights-verse [1]
Category: Death Note
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cliche, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, POV Multiple, Rough Sex, Unhealthy Relationships, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-23 11:17:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 381,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youremyqueen/pseuds/youremyqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>L imprisons Light and then Light imprisons L and then L imprisons Light again. Sometimes they have sex, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. nights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is one giant cliche. With quite a few smaller cliches thrown into the mix. I'm not going to pretend to be doing anything revolutionary here. It's your basic L-and-Light-fall-in-love-during-the-Yotsuba-arc fic. I meant to come up with something new and different, I swear, but after staring down my word processor for a couple of weeks, this is what came out. In bulk. The cliches are cliches for a reason, anyway, and I have hope that I've fiddled with the execution enough so that it doesn't feel like you've already read this exact fic 68 times before. As you can see I tacked a pretentious quote onto it, so that, at least, should count for something.
> 
> The actual summary is something like: L has sex with everyone, FOR JUSTICE. Except with lots of angsty monologuing. I kind of don't know what I'm doing here, so bare with me, kids.
> 
> Any and all reviews are appreciated. Thank you for reading.

_"All mortal greatness is but disease."_  
\- Herman Melville, _Moby Dick: or, the White Whale._

 

\---

 

There is a riotous sea under his skin when Light touches him, and it never quite goes away no matter how much they keep touching, or fucking, or talking each other in circles with the same tired accusations and flimsy defenses. Round and round, and L doesn't know when it will stop, only that when it does, one of them will have to die.

"You'll kill me someday, won't you?" he whispers into Light's hair.

That makes Light laugh with the nervous sort of amusement you force when you don't know what else to do. "Don't be stupid, L."

"Ryuzaki," L corrects. Not that it matters, of course.

"Don't be stupid, Ryuzaki," Light repeats, sounding tired and annoyed, like a weary parent with a wayward child that won't stop asking frivolous questions.

"I assure you, I am not. My intelligence is far above average, although I admit it's been a while since I've been properly tested. Perhaps it's decreased in the past few months. I have sustained quite a few light head wounds recently."

"Are you trying to say I've fucked your brains out?" Light jokes, tone light and amused because Light is alway grasping at those sort of straws.

"Don't be crass, Light," L chides. He likes correcting Light, because Light hates being corrected.

Light snorts indelicately, because he is a teenager yet and, along with fucking people their parents wouldn't approve of, that is what teenagers do. "I wouldn't dream of it." That and, in Light's case, mass murder, but there's a time and place for the latter, and in this little sanctuary of their's, Kira is just a ghost, a scary story that - for the time being - they can choose not to believe.

L turns and kisses him, long and slow, like this is the last time he will ever kiss him, because L likes to be prepared for emergencies at all times, and also because he likes kissing Light. He likes the tickle of the strands of his hair and the way he digs his fingers into L's jaw when he tries to pull away - and L always tries to pull away, just for the feeling of being held close.

"You make me feel sick, you know," L says after a moment, breath whispering against Light's lips.

"Don't say things to me like that," Light says back, but he's not crossing his arms or turning away, maybe because L is half on top of him, and maybe because he understands the truth of what L is saying more than he'd readily admit.

To be honest, L's not sure what Light knows at this point, only that it's less than it had been. He's changed, somehow. L can never decide if he likes the change or not. There are moments when Light's apparently genuine innocence is a blessing, a sheet that L can pull over the truth to keep it at bay for long enough for them to finish their latest chess game or discussion of classic literature or quick fuck in the hallway bathroom. It doesn't fix anything, but it makes it easier, and L can only bide his time until the moment when that won't be enough.

"Like what? The truth?" L asks, looking away. The moon is still out, but the sky is pink, and the glow of it streams in through the high-rise windows to fill the room with an unearthly, hollow warmth, like a picture of a faraway tropical beach or one of those screen-savers of an animated fire place.

"I don't want the truth," Light tells him, cupping his face with a solid palm that pulls L around to look at him again. Even if Light's aware of a lot less than he should be, he's not a complete idiot. He knows that something is off, that they're hiding away from the looming enormity of what this all comes down to. Maybe he even knows what it comes down to, maybe he's just that good a liar and L is the one falling into the trap, falling since day one, instead of the other way around.

"What do you want, Light?" he ask the curve of Light's jaw. "Any idea?"

Light has to think about it, probably takes longer to come up with the answer than L does, and that either says something about how well L knows him, or else about how little he knows himself.

"Justice," he says, after a few minutes. L nods, sighing as he leans against Lights chest, supporting himself with the frame of the other boy.

"That's the problem, isn't it?" he asks, not really expecting an answer, because it skates too close to the truth, nearly wakes the great big elephant in the room, and when that happens - whenever or however that will happen - this will all end.

Light looks at him then, and there's a murky sort of clarity in his eyes. "It's what you want, too."

It's sickening how much L doesn't want this to end.

"That's the other problem."

 

\---

**two months earlier.**

\---

 

It starts, as all of the worst things do, in the dead of night.

Light is either asleep or faking it when L leans over and asks, head cocked to the side and half-chewed lollipop sticking out from the corner of his mouth, "Light-kun, do you know how to make chocolate eclairs?"

Light blinks his eyes open, too tired to hide his annoyance, and L thinks that's probably a good thing. He should conduct all interrogations with Light half asleep. It makes him far less personable, but also far more likely to slip up and spill something. As Light forces his eyes shut and turns away to go back to sleep, L revises his thought process. Light would never slip up. That's part of what makes the Kira case so enjoyable. Light is the perfect criminal.

"Light-kun?" he repeats.

Light sits up, leveling a rumpled, sleepy glare in L's direction that L vaguely notes the attractiveness of. Said attractiveness being _very_. "No Ryuzaki, I do not know how to make chocolate eclairs," he grits.

L nods, slumping in his seat. He'd expected as much. "That's very disappointing."

Light rolls his eyes. "Why would you assume - " he starts, then shakes his head. "Nevermind. Just go to sleep."

"Oh, no, I'm not at all tired."

L imagines he can see Light's eye twitching, like an irritable cartoon character. He had never watched many cartoons in his youth, concerned as he had been with more intellectual pursuits, but there was a serial killer in Tulsa, Arizona two years ago who had killed his victims by crushing them with anvils. L had done research.

"Fine, then _I'm _going to sleep," Light says, falling back into the mattress with less grace than usual and pulling the blanket up and half on his head. Light generally employs a method of detached politeness with the various antics that L throws his way - employs it at everyone else, too, but at least then it comes off as more genuine - but it's the middle of the night now and it seems he can't be bothered with it.__

__L chews at his thumbnail and remains where he is. "Goodnight."_ _

__After a moment, Light sighs, opening his eyes again. "Can't you have Watari make them for you?" he asks, evidently trying to rectify his frustration from a moment ago - justified as it had been - in some misguided attempt to continue to perpetuate his golden-boy persona as the truth._ _

__"Oh, yes, I suppose," L says, bringing a finger to his lip to tug at it. It's a measured movement. "I'd have to get him up, though, and as Watari only sleeps four hours a night as it is, I'd rather not."_ _

__Light rolls his eyes. "You can't wait four hours for some eclairs?"_ _

__"No, I'm afraid it's a rather immediate need," L says._ _

__Light stares at him, brows drawn down and mouth almost quirked. It's sort of vaguely endearing in a way that Light had never once been before his imprisonment. His words and his actions are virtually the same, but his entire demeanor has shifted, and whatever clinical niceties he'd participated in before pale strongly to genuine decency that seems to radiate from him now._ _

__Even when he's cruel, he's kinder than he was, and almost as if just to prove as much he scoffs and says, "You really are a child, aren't you?" Like L isn't the greatest detective in the world, like he hasn't seen and done things that would shock Light to his core._ _

__"I'm 24," he says blankly, and that's measured, too - because everything is always measured, or else he'd be dead by now. He doesn't think his age will be of any real worth to Kira - it could only lead to birth records if L _had_ birth records, which he doesn't - and anyway, he's been planning on something like this. Let Light in, let him think they're getting closer, that he considers him a friend. Neither of them actually have to believe it, they just have to commit to the farce, and it will all inevitably lead somewhere._ _

__Presumably, to Kira's downfall._ _

__"Really?" Light asks after a moment, seeming to process the information and then store it in whichever section of his head is reserved for information on L. He's sure there is one. L's got plenty of files on him, both mentally-kept and otherwise._ _

__"Yes. You're surprised?" He would be. L does not look his age, he's fairly sure of that, which tends to be beneficial in allowing himself to be underestimated for purposes of stealth._ _

__Light seems to have forgotten that he's apparently desperate for sleep, the thought likely having slipped his mind with the introduction of personal information on L. His eyes are awake and alive now, scanning L up and down with interested scrutiny. It's so blatantly _Kira_ that it almost makes L less suspicious. "Well, yeah," he says after a moment, "You look like an anorexic 18-year-old."_ _

__L holds back an amused sound. The situation doesn't call for humor, and he's uninterested in introducing it. "I see." He tries to hit the stark balance between vaguely hurt, but mostly blasé, and from the way Light winces somewhat sheepishly, it appears to work._ _

__"That's not what I meant," Light corrects somewhat hurriedly, sitting up slightly. His bangs fall in his face, no doubt tickling the edges of his eyelashes. He really is such an attractive boy; it's a shame about the mass murder._ _

__"Ah. Is 'anorexic 18-year-old' code for something, then?" L says, cocking his head to the side. He's almost certain Light can't detect the teasing in his tone._ _

__Light rubs at the back of his head sheepishly. "I just meant I thought you were… closer to my age." It's a valiant attempt, and if Light's opinion of his appearance mattered at all to the investigation, L might explore this issue further._ _

__Then again. Given the nature of their so-called 'friendship,' it might be beneficial for Light to take a more personal interest in him. Cultivating a working relationship with Kira has been L's plan from the start - it's the only way to monitor him properly, and besides, makes profiling him far easier - and although he's worked to establish what, on paper, could be called a personal connection with Light - which wasn't hard, given their similarities - they aren't actually particularly close. Which seems ridiculous, at this point, as they're sharing the same bed and Light is looking at him with what appears to be genuine interest._ _

__It had been different before, L's sure. Light had been different before. Farther away, like some distant, shining thing speaking down to the rest of them from the heavens - or, at least, the self-conceived, illusory heavens created by his monuments ego. That's gone now. Light Yagami is still intelligent, still slightly haughty and self-absorbed, but in a way that is not uncommon in a good-looking young man who's aware of his positive qualities._ _

__He no longer sees himself a God. He's just a teenager now. What L doesn't understand, is why._ _

__He has to do something with this, though. The situation has arranged itself perfectly for an opportunity of developing their relationship further, and L cannot shy away. _Go for the guts_ , Watari had told him once, when he was a child. _You'll have to get your hands dirty._ A rather morbid thing to say to an eight-year-old boy, perhaps, but nonetheless effective. L knows where the guts are, and he knows how to reach them best._ _

__L stands from his chair, moving over to the bed as swiftly as a passing shadow, and leans over Light to look him deftly in the eyes._ _

__"Closer to your age?" he repeats, like he doesn't quite understand. "Is that because you feel a strong bond with me?"_ _

__Light's forehead crumples. "What? No," he says automatically. It's a lie, L thinks. Kira is undoubtedly connected to L, and even without Kira, L can tell Light thinks Ryuzaki more similar to him than anyone he's met, despite the many oddities of L's that he doesn't share. If anything is making him deny it here, it's L's wide eyes, the way he leans in, invades his personal space more than is perhaps appropriate._ _

__"We're friends, aren't we, Light-kun?" L asks, only leaning in closer, like he has not a clue about social decorum or the rules of personal interaction. So close, in fact, that he imagines he can feel Light's warm breath on his cheek. Light leans back further, whether consciously or not, putting distance between them._ _

__"Yeah, we're friends, Ryuzaki," Light says, almost cautiously. He gets this look in his eye, sparkling with that good-boy charm of his, like he wants to say something else. But after a moment he just looks away, mumbling, "I mean, most people don't imprison their friends for months at a time and then chain them to their wrists."_ _

__L can't help but pop a slight smirk then. He thinks it mostly goes unnoticed in the dark, anyway. "Most people aren't friends with mass murderers."_ _

__"I'm not -" Light starts, brow drawing down, and it'll be another self-righteous tirade, L's sure, about correct investigative procedure and a very by-the-book concept of justice, and not only are those tearfully boring, but they'll do nothing to bring he and Light closer together, so he cuts him off before he can really get going._ _

__L flops onto his back, hitting the mattress with a soft sound and somewhat crushing Light's feet, ignoring whatever he has to say about not being Kira. "Do you think there's an eclair shop that delivers 24/7?" he asks, picking up the earlier thread of the conversation._ _

__"An eclair shop?" Light repeats doubtfully, like he's half annoyed at L's behavior, and half exhaustedly resigned. "I… don't think we have those in Tokyo."_ _

__"That's a shame," L says, staring up at the ceiling dismally and chewing on one of his fingers. He wonders if Light will shove him off, or if that well-bred politeness will win over and he'll let L spend the rest of the night lying half on top of him. L's not sure he'd mind the latter. It's not particularly comfortable, and it wouldn't get him anywhere in the investigation, but Light's breathing is steady in the quiet room, accompanied only by the hushed hum of L's laptop where it balances somewhat precariously on the nightstand, and L can't help but feel a pang of unforeseen contentment._ _

__"Ryuzaki," Light says after a moment, voice a low, pleasant spear through the buzz of thoughts that float through L's head._ _

__"Yes, Light-kun," L replies without moving, eyes shifting in their sockets to peer at Light sideways._ _

__Either Light changes his mind then, or hadn't planned what to say in the first place, but either way he's silent for a few moments, before looking away, to glare at the glowing red 3:56 of the alarm clock._ _

__"Go to sleep," he says to his pillow, settling back down under the covers and lightly wiggling his feet in order to dislodge L. He looks tired and maybe a bit confused, in the boyish way he sometimes gets, the way that reminds L that Kira is little more than a child._ _

__A child that treats the world as his play thing, and anyone he dislikes as a disposable toy._ _

__"I can't," L says, sitting up again. He even does Light the courtesy of getting off of him, only to kneel as his side, invading his personal space even more so than before. Light glares at him over his shoulder, but it's half-hearted at best. If anything, he seems used to L's antics, which only means that L needs to up the ante._ _

__If you are interrogating a man with electro shock therapy, you start with the lowest level of electricity, and if that yields no results, you move on to the next level - and so on and so forth until you get the information, confession or accusation or whatever else it may be, that you need. The same holds true with any sort of interrogation, however subtle. If Light isn't responding adequately to L's current methods, it's more than likely simply because said methods aren't strong enough, and need to be intensified._ _

__"Fine, then let me sleep,” Light says, purposefully looking anywhere else but the place from which L's eyes stare out at him. His intention is to unnerve Light, and it appears to be working, but such techniques can only be employed for a short time before they fade into the background, easily ignored._ _

__L has to do something that Light can't ignore._ _

__"Please don't do that,” he tells him, as soon as Light seems to be settled in to get back to sleep._ _

__"Then what _should_ I do?" Light says, sitting up again, teeth grit and expression taut with annoyance. This clearly isn't endearing L to him. Not much does._ _

__And it's sort of a snap decision more than anything else, something that hits L in the moment and, unable to mull over the possible ramifications - to weigh the pros and cons, to draw up mental charts, or calculate possibilities – he simply follows through on the experiment before any proper hypotheses can be made. Criminal investigation is oftentimes very measured and precise, with the pertinence lying in the smallest of details, but even so, certain gambits are necessary to keep things progressing._ _

__That's what it's about - progress. It's when things come to a screeching halt and all roads lead to dead ends that you're really in trouble._ _

__In order to avoid that, in order to fracture the dull calm that has come over the investigation in the last few weeks - defined only as a vague waiting period - L will have to act. So he does just that, leaning forward to tip his chin against Light's jaw, and press his lips, softly, to the edge of his mouth._ _

__It's gentle, could almost be called shy, because L knows that he can't push too hard, has to time this just right if he wants it to actually get him anywhere. Not only will forcing the romantic angle no doubt make L appear more predatory than he actually needs Light to perceive him as, but he knows Light won't react favorably to being grabbed, or shoved onto his back. Friends or not, sworn enemies or not, their relationship is one of competition. L will go into this battle with plans to allow Light to, in essence, win._ _

__After a shocked, frozen moment, Light relents, leaning into the kiss easily, seemingly soaking up the pressure of L's lips against his. He's a warm solid weight that pulls him in, trailing gentle fingers up L's chest and touching him briefly, before lightly pushing him away._ _

__Light's face is flushed slightly, and his eyes are wide and awake, swimming with the electric sort of shock that isn't truly born of surprise, so much as it is some sort of violent jolt, unexpected or not. He keeps his hand on L's chest, not letting up on the pressure, but not seeming to actually want him to move away._ _

__L licks at his lips, and just keeps staring. He vaguely wonders - not for the first time - if this is at all a good idea, thinks _probably not_ , but resolves to continue with it, anyhow._ _

__“What are you doing?” Light asks, breathing somewhat erratic, despite the definite lack of exertion required by the kiss. His cheeks are lit with a slight blush, but he doesn't strike L as being particularly embarrassed. No doubt he's used to advances from a number of people. It's not impossible that he had expected something like this to happen all along, what with the chain and the bed and the showers._ _

__If that's true, then it can only work in L's favor. Feeding Light's childish vanity will no doubt endear L to him more than offend him. L doesn't want to play up the crush angle, though, because while, if he could sell it properly, it might work out very well, past experience shows that L is not as good at feigning affection as he'd like to be._ _

__He'll have to make it seem like something simpler than that. Indulging curiosity? Engaging with a kindred spirit? Simple hormones? He's not sure, and at this point, he may indeed only have time to figure it out after._ _

__“I would think that would be obvious, Light-kun,” L replies, so softly he's practically whispering. He keeps his eyes wide as ever, and trained on Light's face, drinking him in with what he hopes looks like appreciation. It's not hard to affect - Light is, at the least, pleasant to look at. _Devastatingly attractive_ , though, would perhaps be more accurate a summation._ _

__Light doesn't appear to take that as an acceptable answer, but L doesn't care, leaning in further to capture his lips again, not quite so shyly this time, even licking slightly at the corners of his mouth, leaning over Light's chest to press against him._ _

__Light just shoves him back again, almost looking vaguely amused, like this is just another one of L's antics. In truth, that's exactly what it is._ _

__“Okay, okay, but _why_?” Light says, rephrasing the question, and still holding L off of him with one hand._ _

__“I can't sleep,” L says simply, letting himself be pushed. He slumps slightly in his half-crouch, trying to look as downtrodden as possible. Pathetic, even._ _

___Please, Light, you God among men, please take pity on me._ _ _

__He lets his body language speak for him, offers himself up as best he can. Tries to appeal to any part of Light Yagami that he can convince to be attracted to him, or, at the very least, minimally interested. It doesn't seem to work. Light frowns, lifting his hand away from L's chest, as if he'd forgotten that he'd left it there, and then looks away. L tries not to let the frustration show on his face._ _

__“You can never sleep,” Light says, still not looking at him. L is still practically in his lap, but if he notices, he doesn't let it show._ _

__L cocks his head to the side. “I want to,” he says, and Light looks back at him then, which is helpful, because then L can look him in the eyes when he says, “I'm tired, Light-kun.”_ _

__There's truth in the words, but that doesn't matter so much as the blatant, falsified vulnerability that they showcase - that seems to catch Light even more off-guard than the kiss had. L knows what Light wants, and it's easy to give it to him, to sink against him and say, “Light-kun,” in a quiet, cut-glass voice that makes it clear what he's asking for._ _

__It's no better than cheap porn acting, perhaps, but - like cheap porn - it feeds into Light's baser desires, so much so that it doesn't matter if L's seductive farce is believable or not. Light leans in and kisses him again, choosing to believe it, anyway._ _

__And L, he gives it his all. He pulls out those sharply honed skills he hasn't used in years, groaning softly into Light's mouth as his hand trails down his chest, pulling at the material of his pajama shirt. It's silky and it feels good against L's fingertips, the cool fabric sliding with his skin, pulling him in slippery and smooth, like a pool or a stream or an ocean. L almost goes there in his head, almost dips away, because sex is a requirement of the job, but investigative sex is oftentimes more a chore than anything else, and if he could afford to, he'd gladly zone out. Lie back and think of England._ _

__This isn't just about gaining Light's trust, though, it's about testing his reactions, about watching, about measuring. So he mentally catalogues the feel of Light's warm breath against his lips, of his fingers twisting through the ends of L's hair, of his thigh sliding up to press against the rapidly forming bulge in L's jeans. He can't quite help the gasp that escapes, and that's good - _so good_ \- that's what he needs to do. Pretend he likes it, pretend he's enjoying it._ _

__Pretend. Right._ _

__“Ryuzaki,” Light says, shoving him away for the third time that night, and L really wishes he'd make up his mind, because his cock is hard and he's got things he needs to do once Light's asleep, and he really just wants to get this part over with._ _

__Extended physical contact makes him uncomfortable in the first place, and prostituting himself is a fair bit worse, so if it's all the same to Light, he'd really thinks they should just get on with it._ _

__Light looks like he wants to say something, that doe-eyed, questioning schoolboy look plastered across his face again, so L cuts him off, crawling further into Light's lap and pressing himself firmly against the solid weight of his lightly-toned supermodel chest. “Light-kun, please,” L murmurs, grinding himself against Light's clothed hip, “will you help me?”_ _

__L suspects Light won't be able to resist that, the pleading - it's textbook awkward submission, and L is exceedingly good at it - and he's right, of course. Light cups his face in one hand, looking at him with those soulful eyes of his, and are they on a daytime drama, or what? L wishes that they could dispense with the teenaged romanticism and get straight to the point already. Sex, or something close to it, is what he's aiming for. Everything else is just window-dressing._ _

__“Okay, Ryuzaki,” Light says softly into his ear, finally slipping his hand down to tug at the button of L's jeans. About time. It's a good thing Light is so good-looking, so strong and solid and warm and, just, nice against him, because that makes his arousal far easier to fake._ _

__L cants his hips as soon as Light touches him through his boxers, letting a soft whimper slip out, which - as predicted - only makes Light grip him tighter, stroke him faster. He's - very good with his hands, to say the least, which isn't overly surprising, considering Light Yagami is good at everything, but it makes L's mental note-taking quite a bit less focused than it ought to be. He groans again, lets his palm scramble slightly across Light's back, like he's desperate - he's not desperate, not really, it's just a show. Just another game._ _

__Sex is a game and Light may have the advantage currently, but L is the star player, and he will win this like he wins everything else. His method of victory will simply be - and _oh_ , Light's hand is good - a little different._ _

__“Shhh,” Light whispers, as L quivers in his arms, and really, his ego must be enjoying this terribly. “It's alright, I've got you.”_ _

__Soon it's skin-on-skin, Light's hand wrapped tight around him and L cradled in his lap like a child, like a helpless thing. Light murmurs soft, kind things into his hair that L can't help but imagine with a mocking edge peeking out from the corners, because there's no way that Light - that Kira - isn't thoroughly enjoying his apparent desperation._ _

__It's not long before L comes gasping into Light's hand, and blearily, in the back of his mind, he feels a smug satisfaction in the sensation of Light's own arousal digging sharply into his thigh._ _

___Of course_ , L tells himself, as his mind comes slowly back to him, like honey from a jar. Light is an 18-year-old boy. He gets hard when the microwave beeps, when a beetle crawls by. When somebody sneezes. It's just hormones, he's sure, but it's still slightly pleasing to know that he's got Light aching without even putting a hand on his cock._ _

__His own breath is overly loud in the quiet room, but he doesn't attempt the censor it, just lets the sound bleed into the corners of Light's mind, lets him get used to it._ _

__By many law enforcement standards, this is highly unethical. Which is why L sets his own standards, otherwise nothing would ever get done in these situations, and the apparently innocent would remain so, instead of being found out for what they truly are._ _

__No one is innocent, L knows. Not even teenage boys. Especially not teenage boys. Some are just less innocent than others._ _

__He slumps off and to the side, curling himself slightly around Light, and if the situation were much, much different, he might be slightly comfortable, body warmed from the exertion and head bleary with post orgasmic chemicals. He could fall asleep here, and wouldn't that be something? He sleeps so little as it is, so to give in, to succumb to exhaustion now, half-draped on a mass murderer, seems terribly ridiculous to his overworked brain. Though perhaps not as unrealistic as it should be._ _

__Light looks down at him, like he's not quite sure what to make of the whole situation - which is a good thing, L supposes. He blinks up at him, almost smiles slightly, but stops himself when it occurs to him that that, of all things, might be too unbelievable for Light. Instead, he keeps his eyes wide, and speaks softly._ _

__“Would you like me to touch you, Light-kun?” he asks, trailing his long fingers up Light's thigh in a move that he hopes comes off as more absentminded than seductive. This whole plan hinges on the necessity that Light not realize that he's being seduced._ _

__“You don't -” Light starts, words cutting off sharply when L's hand lands on the bulge in his sweatpants. His eyes widen, before going thick and hooded, and he glances only briefly at L's face, before reaching down to wrap his palm around L's knuckles, guiding the rhythm of his hand in harder strokes. “Mmmh, L.”_ _

__“Ryuzaki,” L corrects, speaking into the crook of Light's shoulder._ _

__“Ryuzaki,” Light repeats, catching on the word with a choked gasp as he speeds L's hand up, working himself quickly through the material. L lets himself be directed for a bit, enjoying the feel of Light's hand wrapped around his as his cock presses into the other side more than he probably should. After a minute or so he shakes him off, and slips Light's pants down his hips to bring his cock out into open air._ _

__Light's face flushes slightly, before morphing into an indulgent smile when he catches L looking at it, somewhat curiously. L supposes Light thinks he's a virgin. He ought to play that up, then, which means he probably shouldn't go down on him just now. Instead, he opts for a gentle, experimental squeeze, keeping his eyes wide and his mouth slightly open, biting his lips to draw attention to them, to tempt with them. To make Light ache for a time when L _will_ wrap them around his cock._ _

__For now he just plays with it like a child with a new toy, jerking and stroking, until Light is gasping and mumbling something mostly unintelligible and slightly expletive, before finally seeming to get frustrated enough by L's slow tease to grab him forward by the collar of his shirt and demand, “More,” in a gritty, arousal-stricken voice._ _

__L, committing to his necessary role as the submissive partner, bends to Light's orders without complaint, speeding his hand up, applying enough pressure to get him off in moments. Light digs hard fingers into L's hair, grasping at his scalp to pull him forward and force his tongue between L's lips. Not having really expected the kiss, L's chokes a bit, but opens up to it anyway, lets Light in to do what he will, and accepts the muffled groan that's breathed into him when he Light comes in his hand._ _

__While Light is regaining his breath, L wipes his hand off before rolling away to settle comfortably on the crisp, clean sheets on his side of the bed. “Thank you,” he says into the thick warmth of the air. “You can go to sleep now, Light-kun.”_ _

__He ignores the insulted grunt that Light gives in response. “You,” he says disbelievingly, “you just -” He cuts off, either at a loss for words at L's oh so disrespectful conduct, or too exhausted to have this fight now. Either way, he simply rolls his eyes and turns over, shutting L's laptop as he goes, and settles resolutely in to sleep._ _

__L lets him drift off, staring up at the ceiling and calculating what exactly he plans to do with this. Something, certainly, he's just not sure of the details yet._ _

__He sleeps maybe fifteen minutes that night, and not a wink more._ _

__

__\---_ _

__

__Light wakes up with dried come on his sweatpants._ _

__It's not the first time it's happened, but it's definitely the first time in a long time, and when it had - at those early stages of puberty when he hadn't the faintest idea about what was going on down there - it had almost certainly always been on the _inside_. He wants to groan and bury himself back underneath the pillows, but he blinks his eyes open instead, unconsciously glancing around to find L before he can stop himself. It's not hard, he sticks out easily in the monotone room, black hair an unruly stain against the cool greys everywhere else. He's perched at his computer, finger to his lip, and looking for all the world like he had yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that._ _

__The first thing Light thinks when his eyes catch on him is, _Why exactly did I want to fuck him so badly last night?__ _

__The second, is _Oh._ Oh yeah - that._ _

__He wrinkles his nose at the sight of his wrecked clothing once more. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time - and isn't that a pathetically common thought? He feels like a filthy cliche, deflated and disappointed after a night of regrettable sexual activity. He might as well go back to university now, because he'd fit in frighteningly well at this point. Hand jobs - _hand jobs_ \- with his roommate. He'll be getting idiotically drunk and vomiting on the sidewalk by next week, at this rate._ _

__The worst part, Light thinks, as he leans further into the cushions and tries to wish himself back to sleep - and there are just so many possible worst parts to choose from - is that Light doesn't even like sex. Or any kind of sexual activity. He really doesn't. It's boring and unsanitary, and although it's necessary every so often to function at his age, he doesn't engage in it simply for _fun_. It's not fun. It's not even mildly diverting, usually. Last night, though - well, he'd been… mildly diverted. At the least._ _

__The second worst part - and he's calculated it all properly in his head - is that L is unattractive. Objectively, there's no possible reason for Light to be interested in tugging on his dick until he comes, unless to try to use sex as a way to divert suspicion from himself - which is something he would never do. Manipulating a person with sex is just low, and even if Light were that morally bankrupt, he'd never even consider that that could possibly work on L. That L even has a sex drive is enough of a revelation in and of itself._ _

__Unless… well, given his imprisonment and interrogation tactics, it's not unreasonable to suggest that L's investigative techniques are not exactly ethically sound. In fact, he's far less likely to follow any rules of procedure than he is to, say, try and seduce Light into a confession. The idea of L seducing anyone is as laughable as it is uncomfortable, but Light remembers how unreasonably appealing he'd somehow become last night, for no conceivable reason other than, perhaps, he'd decided that he wanted to be._ _

__To make Light want to fuck him._ _

__To make Light admit to being Kira._ _

__That's not all that logical, of course, but then - for all that he likes to pretend otherwise - L is not a creature of reason or rules. He is blunt and cruel and unpredictable. He is the best in the world at his job._ _

__And if that's what that had been, then Light actually feels quite a bit better about the events of the previous night. It's not his fault. L is brilliant and he had caught Light off guard. He hadn't had time to prepare, to think it over rationally. His strength lies in planning, not in improvisation, and now that he's got time to mentally work through this, he's sure he can come up with a way to shift it to his advantage._ _

__He quirks an eye open too peer at L's hunched frame, watching his hair hang in thick tumbles across his face, and decides that, actually, he can probably think of a _number_ of ways. If L wants to challenge him on this level, Light won't refuse. He himself wouldn't dream of using sex as a weapon on some poor, unsuspecting person - but L, L is more or less asking for it. He'd engaged Light this way, likely for the specific purpose of playing a game, and Light won't bow out now and let him win. L is the bad guy here - Light is just going to show him that he can't get away with this kind of thing._ _

__After a few more minutes of feigning sleep, Light makes a show of waking, looking around and coming to terms with his surroundings. He's a brilliant actor, and though L seems more focused on his computer than anything else, Light knows that's just a cover for where his attention truly lies - where his attention always lies. Ten-to-one he's watching Light in the reflection of the screen, or at least listening intently to his side of the room._ _

__"Ryuzaki," Light says blearily after a moment._ _

__"Yes, good morning, Light-kun," L calls, not bothering to look away from whatever file he's reading. It's an act, of course, but Light pretends not to know that._ _

__He thinks of mentioning last night, of asking - innocently, cluelessly - what it had been about. Instead, he just stands up, yawning like nothing's different, and says, nodding to L's laptop, "Can you bring that into the bathroom? I need to shower."_ _

__L nods wordlessly, picking up his computer one-handed, which doesn't seem at all safe, and following Light like an absentminded puppy._ _

__The clink of the chain as L types from his perch on the counter is not an unfamiliar sound, but today it has the unfathomable and severely inconvenient effect of making Light so hard that he has to make a pointed effort not to wrap his hand around his cock and get off again in the shower._ _

__If L notices his unease as he dries off, though, he, of course, doesn't say a thing._ _

__

__\---_ _

__

__It's mid-afternoon and they're on a bathroom break when Light slams him against the wall and kisses him. It's a little bit more awkward than it might have otherwise been, because L's barely finished having a piss, and hasn't even fully washed his hands yet, but Light doesn't seem to care. L had seen this coming - so to speak - miles and miles off, but for such a subtly brilliant mind, he'd expected Light to be a little less brazen with his acceptance of sex as a playing field. Maybe milked the coy school boy angle a little bit. Not that L minds the brazenness terribly - it sure saves him a lot work - but he might have expected a bit better from him._ _

__Then again, he suppose Light has far less experience in using sex as a weapon than L does, and therefore can't really be blamed. He is, after all, a novice._ _

__L had known since this morning that Light had caught on. He gets credit for that, at least, but then play-acting isn't exactly L's strong suit, so maybe not that much credit. If he had confronted L, if he had demanded an explanation, that - well, it wouldn't have lessened the Kira percentage per se, but it would have meant that Kira was just no good at this sort of game. The deafening silence had proven the opposite. Light had realized that L was trying to manipulate him with sex and had - if the current situation is any indication - decided to manipulate him back. So much for superior morality._ _

__L bends in his hands, lets Light push him flat against the tiling and jam their hips together, pressing in close and sucking on L's tongue with something too measured to be blind lust, but too starkly intense to be completely false. Then again, Light is a fantastic liar, and L will not make the mistake of underestimating him. Erring on the side of caution is the only suitable option in these sorts of situations, so L will take everything Light does or says as a farce and a strategy unless it can be sufficiently proven otherwise. Light appears to want him, and the feel of his cock grinding against L's groin is certainly an argument in favor of legitimacy on that front, but L needs to operate on the assumption that he is really just working towards L's downfall, and this is only his means to an end - same as it is to L._ _

__His head buzzes with the weight of the kiss, and the storm of physical reactions it evokes, but he needs to keep his mind clear, at least enough to remain in control of the situation, so he pulls back after a moment. Light lets him, resting his forehead against L's and smiling a sharp, hungry, angry smile._ _

__"You didn't say anything this morning," L says, in between breathes._ _

__Light huffs a laugh, straightening up a bit, but not moving an inch away. "It was awkward. Can you blame me?" His bangs are somewhat rumpled, and they hang in his eyes, but L can still detect the clear, calculating look that doesn't match the words. No, Light is not overcome by desire for him. Light is just trying to control him._ _

__L cocks his head to the side. "I detected no such awkwardness."_ _

__He gasps, body jerking, when Light shifts his leg and presses his thigh further between L's legs, rubbing against him in a way that makes his mind blur with the spark and burn of sudden, wild pleasure. His head falls forward before he can stop it, and Light appears to like that, petting at L's hair with loose fingers and smiling a smile that L assumes is meant to be gentle, but just comes off as condescending. Though, with the way L's reacting, perhaps Light has earned himself the right to feel a little high and mighty. For now._ _

__"You live and breathe awkwardness," he says, like he's poking casual fun at a friend, and not, in fact, holding L down so that his hips don't crush themselves against Light's with the brutal abandon he wants them to. "Of course you didn't notice. Us normal people, on the other hand," he says while getting a good grip at L's thick mess of hair, "don't exactly know how to react to out-of-the-blue sexual advances."_ _

__L wants to point out in the hypocrisy in that statement - seeing as Light is near on assaulting him during a bathroom break - but instead just tries not to let the side of his lip twitch too much when he says, "You seemed receptive."_ _

__"I wasn't thinking straight," Light bites back, still smiling._ _

__"And now?" L rocks his hips forward slightly, watching Light's face loosen, eyes rolling slightly with the feel of it._ _

__"I'm pretty sure I'm still not thinking straight," he says, and L means to knock out some clever response, but doesn't have time to before he's gripped forward and Light is kissing him hard and mercilessly, adding further to the aching pressure that's holding L down, keeping him pinned and stationary, even though he'd be far better off with more room to move around, to think and plot and _breathe_. Light is crowding him and L's got little choice but to open up and let Light shove his tongue forward, licking slick and hot against every corner of his mouth, teeth digging in uncomfortably at intervals and making him wince against Light's lips. It's close and stifling and rather glorious, in its way._ _

__Light pins him to the wall, and L lets him, because even if Light is in on the game, it still works more in L's favor to be fairly pliant. He's not interested in turning this into a pissing contest of who-tops-who, because that's not what this is about. He needs to catch Kira, and he'll do virtually anything to achieve that goal, up to and including bending over for his chief suspect._ _

__"Light-kun," he gasps, when Light pulls away, shoving him back and holding him down with a firmer grip than L would have expected from him. His fingertips dig into L's shoulder, and the ache sends strange pulses of pleasure swimming giddily through his bloodstream. "Please," he says, because he knows it will hit Light hard._ _

__It does. He groans, shoves L's hands to the wall and rubs against him mercilessly with the length of his thigh, pressure so hard and deliberate that L's half convinced he's going to spill in his pants. Which, while not particularly detrimental in the grand scheme, would be rather uncomfortable, so he hopes Light decides he wants to strip him soon. It doesn't take long. L's jeans get shoved down his hips, and his cock get jerked roughly a few times, and that's all it takes. And a good thing, too - he'd rather not drag it out again, at least not on his end._ _

__"Light-kun," he gasps again as he comes, because it makes Light eyelids flutter, the weight of it no doubt settling into him like a sort of disease._ _

__And yes, L, can do this. It's been a while, but this is definitely something he can do. L is an arsenal, and sex is just one of the many weapons contained therein. He catches his breath, then keeps his eyes hard on Light's flushed face as he drops to his knees._ _

__Light flushes further, and he looks vaguely unsure suddenly. "What are you doing?"_ _

__This is good. If he becomes too comfortable with the situation, it will only be to L's disadvantage._ _

__"What does it look like?" he asks flatly, reaching for Light's zipper. Light's eyebrows fly up, but he doesn't push L's hands away. "Problem?"_ _

__Light looks like he's going to say something, but he cuts off abruptly, shaking his head. "No," he says, "no, definitely not." His fingers twitch slightly at his side, and L can tell he's, if not very, then slightly nervous. That's unsurprising. He is barely more than a child at this age. Perhaps that thought should make L uncomfortable, but he views the whole situation - as is his way - through a detached, clinical lens. Which is far easier to do once he's gotten off._ _

__He considers Light's length with a vaguely curious look, before taking it between his lips. He can't help the satisfaction that burns in his stomach when Light gives an almost pained gasp in reaction. Yes, L can do this._ _

__

__\---_ _

__

__L's mouth is frighteningly, unprecedentedly warm. L is a thing that is cold and remote and _so not hot_ , so what right does he have to feel this good inside? L is manipulating him using sex, using his tongue and his lips, and _fuck_ , the edges of his teeth, and it's so immoral and disgusting and awful, and - and Light is spilling down his throat in the next instant._ _

__His stomach shivers and quakes with the pleasure of it as his head thunks jarringly into the wall behind him. He feels cheap and dirty, but so unrepentantly sated that he doesn't really mind. He looks down at L, who's wiping at his mouth with the edge of his hand, and thinks that maybe this isn't the worst thing in the world. Sexual exploitation as an investigation tactic is against everything Light believes in, but then, Light's not the one doing it, is he? L's the bad guy here, the one using Light - not the other way around._ _

__Light is 18. Light is curious. L is older - 24, apparently, however unbelievable that seems - the one with the power, the one who's keeping Light forcibly attached to him. No one could look at this situation and decide that Light is in the wrong. Light is never in the wrong._ _

__So, it's all fine, then. It's fine to enjoy L's mouth on his cock, and fine to want to press him up against things and make him squirm and beg. Even if it's just an act. _Especially_ if it's just an act. He deserves it. L is a bad person and Light is a good person, and that's just how it is, so everything's okay._ _

__L grabs onto the counter to pull himself up, and as Light straightens out his clothes, rumpled as they are, he can't help smirking to himself and saying, in as unassuming a voice as he can manage, "You're… adept at that." Which is putting it mildly, frankly. It's hard to imagine L doing that to anyone else - and also foolish, because why would L want to do that to anyone but him? - but it's surely a possibility. Either he's had tons of practice, or it's he's just that _innately_ talented. Light's not completely sure which idea he prefers._ _

__L scratches at his hair casually, like he hadn't just given Light a blow job. "Is that meant to be a compliment or not?" he says, voice tinged with only vague interest._ _

__"I don't know," Light responds, with genuine uncertainty. "It was - " he starts, then starts again. "Do you have a lot of experience? Doing that." He tries to frame the question indifferently, idly restyling his hair in the mirror. Like he really doesn't care and is just asking in order to make conversation. Which is true, of course. He doesn't care. L could blow the entire task force and he's sure he wouldn't care._ _

__"That's dependent on your definition of _a lot_ ," L says, leaning against the tile wall, head tilted to one side lackadaisically. He doesn't seem to really be paying attention, but Light knows it's an act. Everything L does and says is an act._ _

__Light takes his answer as a yes, if not a definite one. He sighs, rolling his eyes. "I should have known," he says, "You spend about half the average day putting things in your mouth. It's really not a surprise at all." Even if maybe it is. Even if the idea of L doing anything sexual or appearing - however momentarily - even remotely attractive is still slightly ridiculous, it does make an odd sort of sense. L is immoral and cruel, and sexual deviancy often goes hand-in-hand with those qualities. In fact, perhaps Light should have seen this coming a long way off._ _

__L does that wide-eyed, clueless thing he always does, as he brings a finger to his lips and says, "Perhaps Light-kun just reads me exceptionally well."_ _

__It's all Light can do not snort at the blatant lie. L doesn't think anything of the sort. "I doubt it. Ryuzaki, you're really kind of difficult to understand most of the time. Even for me."_ _

__It's not a lie, but it's not exactly the truth of it, either. He always seems to understand - whether or not he wants to - what L is doing, the games he's playing and the theories he's testing. What he can't figure out is _how_ he knows these things, how he's so finely attuned to everything L is thinking. He must have just picked it up unconsciously, in the time before his imprisonment, when he'd still considered L his friend, and a good person._ _

__He's learned better by now. He doesn't exactly remember _when_ or _how_ he learned better, though. It's a thick and blotchy spot in his mind when he tries to think on it. He doesn't remember a lot of things, sometimes. But it's nothing important, just stress from the case. Lack of sleep, perhaps, from L keeping him up all night._ _

__"I don't believe that," L says._ _

__"You don't believe anything I say," Light replies, long-sufferingly._ _

__L seems to weigh that answer in his head before nodding. "That is true in many respects, yes." He pushes off the wall, the chain jangling as he slumps his way to the bathroom door, plucking up the handle with only the tips of his fingers. "Now, come on, I'm hungry."_ _

__

__\---_ _

__

__It's the next night before they talk about anything worth talking about again. The casework they're doing to track down the current Kira is only of minimal importance compared to the investigation going on right here, in this bedroom and on this chain. Light is the center of it all, and although L makes like he is working his hardest to catch whoever's currently passing judgement on the world, his attention is really mostly focused on him. People are dying every day, but he can't bring himself to be overly concerned by that. It's cold, perhaps, but such are the realities of the job. He'd never say as much out loud to the investigation team, but he's able to admit it to himself._ _

__He's not sure if he'd say it to Light or not. He'd, of course, play horrified, but L knows he'd understand. Kira and L are eerily similar in some ways._ _

__They don't bother with small talk as they wash up, L lazily brushing his teeth as Light flosses with singular determination, moisturizes his face, and rubs something sticky and lightly-scented into his hair, as he does every night. He's rather overly concerned with personal hygiene, L's always thought, but then that's probably the reason he always looks like he just walked off of a photo-shoot on some private, European beach, and that L tends to look like he's just walked out of a garbage disposal._ _

__He makes a show of finishing up some research, but it's little more than a pretense and he can tell that Light knows it, watching him with sharp, considering eyes from where he's propped up against the headboard, likewise pretending to read some book or another. It's roughly ten minutes before L shuts his laptop with an audible click and rolls over to more or less climb into Light's lap and kiss him unwaveringly on the mouth. Light appears to have been waiting for just that, because he casts his book aside the very moment L touches him, wrapping a hand around to clutch the back his neck, digging his fingers into the ends of L's hair to drag him closer by them, before abruptly pulling him back._ _

__Light cocks his head cleverly, like he knows the answers to all the questions he means to ask. "So, I guess this is a thing we do now," he says simply, staring back at L with warm inelegance in his eyes._ _

__L's expression barely shifts. "I guess."_ _

__He leans forward again, brushing Light's words away like small, inconsequential things, mostly just because he knows that will drive him crazy. It is something worth talking about, maybe - the way their ever-undefined relationship has shifted and reshaped itself within the span of a cowpoke of days to accommodate their hormones. That's how they're painting it, anyway, although L's sure they both know it's more about lust for battle than it is for one another. Even so, although he's still not completely comfortable with having Light's hands all over him - at being _touched_ , at someone daring to touch him - he's getting used to the situation, and the sensation it brings along. When he kisses Light for the second time, it's not completely painful, and nor is he completely overcome with apprehension at what will follow._ _

__It seems like Light is more interested in talk tonight, which L might find vaguely offensive if his sense of pride was in anyway intertwined with his appearance and sexual ability - but as it stands, just has the effect of rather annoying him. Light soaks up the kiss, snaking L's breath straight from his throat, before pulling away again and roughly shoving L off of him and onto his back without a moment's warning. L's head hits the pillow with soft thunk, and then Light is the one on top, looming over like something great and golden and beautiful. He stares down with accusing eyes._ _

__"L," he says, leaning in so his breath ghosts warm and ticklish across L's temple, slipping around to the back of his neck and coasting down his spine with shivering ease. "I know why you're doing this."_ _

__"Ryuzaki," L corrects, barely thinking about it. He's not been Ryuzaki for a few months yet, but he slips in and out of identities so easily, and this one isn't hard to keep track of. Besides, he doesn't like it when Light refers to him as _L_ , even though they both know that's exactly who he is. It's cold, somehow. The title is departed and cruel when Light speaks it, even now, after his smile has gone so warm and his eyes so honest. Maybe because it's so close to his name - like Kira's already caught him, and is now only playing with his food. _A disposable toy_ , L thinks._ _

__" _Ryuzaki_ ," Light repeats, like he barely notices the corrections anymore. He's looking at L like he can't see him, but is trying to. Bright, boyish eyes - too clever by a half - dig into him, and L feels almost fractured. "I know," Light enunciates, "why you're doing this."_ _

__Yes, L supposes he does. He doesn't know why Light's saying it now, though. That's no way to play the game, so either he's become far less adept recently - along with becoming far more kind - or this is just part of some larger strategy, greater in scope than L can possibly measure at this moment. Erring on the side of caution, he ought to bank on the latter, but there's something honest in Light's eyes that - no. It's a lie. It must be the most expert lie ever told, because if it's not -_ _

___Caution_ , L thinks. It has to be. This is Kira he's dealing with. At least, he's fairly certain it is. If not now, then it was at some point._ _

__"Does it bother you?" he asks flatly, because it would serve nothing to blatantly deny an accusation as vague as that. He's not going to admit to anything directly, either, and he's certainly not going to apologize. As long as neither of them says it outright, it doesn't matter. They can still play the game._ _

__"Of course it bothers me," Light says, frowning down at L like he's a particularly slow child who won't stop misbehaving. There's something like disgust in his eyes, even though L's pretty sure he can feel Light's cock digging into his thigh. Perhaps he gets off on moral superiority._ _

__Heh, _perhaps_. That's an easy 95%._ _

__"I see," L says, like he doesn't really understand at all, or care to. Light's frown just grows, but he doesn't say anything, so L continues. "Would you like to suck me off?"_ _

__Might as well get this going again if L's going to get any work done tonight._ _

__Light's eyebrows fly up and he looks like he can't decide between righteous insult or baffled amusement. He seems to settle somewhere on the latter, shaking his head. "Alright," he says after a moment, and scoots down L's body without another word._ _

__He's not overly skilled with his mouth - he clearly hasn't done this before - but L comes quickly anyway, mind fuzzing over pleasantly in the next instant, and if Light hadn't immediately nudged at him to return the favor, he thinks he might have nodded off soon after._ _

__

__\---_ _

__

__It's another of those unproductive days at headquarters where everything leads only to dead ends. The neatly filed reports are brimming with useless information and Light can think of nothing better to do than file them again, just to busy his hands. Maybe he could get some work done under different circumstances, but as it stands - with no further clues as to Kira's whereabouts or identity and, worse yet, L doing… what he's doing - Light can barely keep his eyes on the words._ _

__"Would you stop that?" he snaps finally, voice low and sharp so that the rest of the team won't hear. His tone is probably edging into unpleasant, but it's not as if it's undeserved. L isn't exactly an arbiter of social decorum himself, anyway. "It's incredibly crass."_ _

__L just stares at him, glass-eyes wide and innocent, and _fuck_ , he's got frozen sugar melting on his lips, doesn't he?_ _

__"My popsicle is crass?" he asks, as if the idea doesn't quite compute for him, even as he leans forward to take a nice, long lick from base to tip, and then shoves the whole thing in his mouth, completely casually, like the phallic suggestiveness is utterly lost on him. Two weeks ago, Light might have believed that, but given that L had kept him up half the previous night - another factor contributing to Light's lack of concentration, and funny how all his problems in life inevitably come back to L, isn't it? - with maneuvers startlingly similar to the ones he's now performing on the obnoxiously colored popsicle, Light's not exactly buying the clueless facade._ _

__L knows what he's doing. Hell, he's probably reveling in it._ _

__"If you do that with it, it is," Light says, quickly and quietly. "Quit acting like you're being paid for your technique and just eat the thing like a normal person."_ _

__L cocks an eyebrow, but doesn't demonstrate his obvious amusement any further. "Light-kun, I think your mind is playing dirty tricks on you," he says. Light kind of wants to punch him._ _

__Instead, he grits his teeth, fakes a smile, and ignores L's vulgar slurping sounds as he gets back to the work. He barely needs to think as he goes through the reports, mind scanning for important details on autopilot and taking in the rest of the information, however inconsequential, without him needing to do much work. He's hit with that overly familiar sensation of wishing he had something more engaging to do with his time, something worth extensive focus, and it takes him a moment to fully register how long it's been since he's felt like this. The Kira investigation, things with L - yes, definitely things with L - had kept him so occupied, he'd barely remembered how bored he used to be before all this._ _

__Well, not right before. He's not completely sure why, but in the months preceding his first meeting with L, he'd been strangely content in a way that he'd never really been before, and he can't quite put his finger on why. He's sure it must have been a mix of things - graduating from high school, getting into university, his relationship with Misa…_ _

__The last one rings rather false, actually; he's not sure how Misa could have interested him at all. Then again, he's not even sure why he'd started dating her in the first place. He knows he must have felt something for her at some point, but he can't recall it now. Not that it truly matters, as they don't see each other very often anymore. Things would probably be better for her if they broke it off anyhow, since she's under suspicion of being the Second Kira mostly because of her relationship with him. He wonders if L would let her -_ _

__L._ _

__L, who had jerked him off last night, and whom he had gone down on two nights before that. L, whom he's screwed around with almost every night this week._ _

__And Misa - his girlfriend._ _

__It's like a flick of a switch, and it hits him harder than he might have expected it to, considering how little he actually cares for Misa. No, that's not true, he cares about her wellbeing. About as much as cares about anybody's, which is quite a lot, really. And he didn't mean - it's not _cheating_ , because Light would never do that. Not to Misa, not to anybody. He and Misa haven't even ever been physical, so it's not like - it's - it's _L_ , is what it is. L seduced him, practically forced him into it. L is the adult, the one in power, the one who is making a teenage boy sleep in his bed. Light is the victim here, and that's all there is to it._ _

__So then it's fine. Light didn't cheat. Light didn't do anything wrong. It's L's fault. Everything is L's fault, and he deserves to hurt and suffer and be held down while Light -_ _

__"Light-kun?" L asks, cutting into his thought process like a splinter through thick skin. Light glances over at him, shoving the mental images away to the back his mind. "Is everything aright?"_ _

__Light smiles, even though he's not sure. "Fine," he says, because that's what he's supposed to say, and the word comes so easy, forming in his throat and twisting on his lips and sounding so utterly genuine he's half convinced of it himself. But he's not sure. Because that, what he'd felt, it had flared up in him like a flame out of nowhere, lit by feelings he didn't even know he had. He's been harboring animosity towards L for a while now, sure, but he's never - it's never been like that._ _

__L's body spread out underneath him, long, pale limbs struggling as Light fucks him without restraint. He's begging, maybe. Bleeding, too._ _

__The image rumbles through him, makes his cock hard even as it makes his stomach twist uncomfortably. Why is he thinking that? He is not the type of person who should be thinking things like that._ _

__He has the strangest sensation, and not for the first time, that L can read his thoughts, and is just now examining the brutal pornographic fantasy in Light's head with vague interest, staring out at him with his thick, black eyes. All he says, though, is, "Would you like a popsicle?" tilting his head dumbly to the side._ _

__Light declines, and tries to go back to filing. Tries not to think about L or Misa or anything, really, except for the reports in front of him, but the wet, noisy sound of L's mouth won't let him concentrate on anything else. Light really, really wants to punch him._ _

__Instead, he waits the long hours until the investigation team heads home, makes sure to ask his father to say hello to Mom and Sayu, and smiles kindly at Matsuda when he waves goodbye, before grabbing L by the chain and tugging him into the hallway, not bothering to make it to their bedroom before he's wrapping his finger through L's hair and pulling him into a rough kiss. It starts off with an almost uncontrollable violence, but at that first touch, at the feel of L wavering in his hands, Light lets up quite abruptly, feeling almost guilty._ _

__The image is still playing through his head, and he tries to block it out with the soft sounds that L makes against his mouth, the feel of his hips angling against him. He doesn't want to hurt L, not really, even if L maybe deserves it a lot of the time. Light is not that kind of person - he's _not_ \- and he's not interested in sexual violence, with L or anyone else. He's not actually interested in sex with anyone else, truly._ _

__It's almost like an apology, and for thoughts that L doesn't even know he'd had, but there's something sick and off-putting about being forceful with L right now, so he lets his grip go gentle, lips dipping soft against the pale line of his jawbone. L shivers and leans into in, nibbling at Light's ear and coasting spindly fingers up and down his back. It feels good, maybe better than any of the other times, because for those short minutes, cramped up against the wall of the long, white hallway with its blinding fluorescents, Light forgets about the game, forgets about one-upping and teaching lessons and how L is a bad, bad person, and just thinks about his ragged mess of his hair, the bones of his spine, and how they bend under Light's touch. His voice hitching on something like, "Li-" before he comes, panting against Light's shoulder in heavy, racking gasps._ _

__

__\---_ _

__**two months later.** _ _

__\---_ _

__

__When Light touches the paper - when it all comes flooding back to him in a torrent of something great and destroying, swirling in him like a tidal wave, _like God_ \- the first thought that becomes clear, as he sits there, shell-shocked in the helicopter, is that image: L, beneath him, bloody and broken and owned. He knows he shouldn't, knows it's not at all according to plan, but he _wants it_. He wants L._ _

__Nothing has changed, and so has everything._ _

__

__\---_ _

__**two months earlier.** _ _

__\---_ _

__

__The night casts blue shadows across the room, and Light's breathing is a steady, anchoring mantra in the dark. L's laptop has gone dark from his neglect of it, and though he knows he should pick it up, wiggle the finger-pad and get back to work, he can't seem to make himself move._ _

__They hadn't actually had intercourse, but L feels, in a word, _fucked_. Empty and bled dry, like Light had sucked the life out of him when he wasn't looking. There had been something in his eyes tonight, something self-aware and almost dangerous, even in its gentleness. Like Kira had almost remembered being Kira - if he'd ever forgotten in the first place. Maybe it's been a farce the whole time, and this is just the first time that Light's let it slip up. But he hadn't looked - or felt, for that matter - like he'd wanted to hurt L._ _

__Then again, of course he hadn't. He's a marvelous actor. He'd probably been plotting L's death behind his eyes the whole time, even as he stroked him, pressing ragged, breathless kisses to his forehead and temples. And even if he wasn't, even if there was a hint of sincerity in the softness of his hands, it doesn't matter. _Er on the side of caution_ , L thinks, and watches the ceiling fan whir above him. It's surely not as complex as he's making out to be. L's brain has always had a tendency to overcomplicate things._ _

__Light is Kira. L is L. Sometimes letting Light touch him is unpleasant - and sometimes it's less so. And that's okay, that can be okay. L is phenomenally good at his job, there's no reason why he shouldn't enjoy it. It's not like he hasn't before - but that was a long time ago, and… unquestionably different._ _

__He hears the sheets rustle, and then the bed shifts, and he glances over to see Light blinking sleepily at him, pretty face awash with dazed exhaustion. "Hey," he murmurs, after a moment, smiling at L. The expression makes L's stomach twist with how genuine it looks, and he shifts his eyes down, tracing the lines of the shadows where they spill across the bedspread._ _

__"Good evening, Light-kun," he mumbles back, half his face squished against the pillow, muffling the words._ _

__Light glances at the clock behind his head. "It's morning," he says._ _

__L flicks his eyes back up to Light, where he's lying on his side, almost mirroring L's slumped pose in the cushions. There is a sick sort of quietness between them, not stretched taut with awkwardness or distrust, but loose and easy, like they've been sharing a bed for years. L likes to think it's a simulated emotion, something he's projected onto Light due to the blatant similarities he's seen between himself and Kira from the start, but then he's not so sure. He doesn't like the idea of some teenaged boy who thinks far too well of himself being his kindred spirit, but there it is. He doesn't like the idea of having a kindred spirit - not only is the concept tacky and overly sentimental, it just rings false._ _

__No man is an island, but L is a fucking continent, a perilous land mass of his own, and one that you need to cross an ocean to reach. Few people have ever tried to reach him, and fewer still have succeeded. Light isn't trying, though, not really. He's playing at trying, putting on a show of affection, but he's a child, and not half the liar he thinks he is. Not in this respect, anyway. So it's rather uncomfortable how close L feels to him in that moment. Like the ocean has dried up._ _

__"Oh," he says softly, pointlessly. He's not sure what else to do._ _

__"Are you alright?" Light asks, leaning slightly closer. He smells like warm skin and sex. L wouldn't mind if he kissed him, and he minds that. There are things he wants to say, but that he doesn't want Light to hear. Sometimes he wants to leave Japan, just call the Kira case quits and go back to England. There are cloudy days and rolling hills waiting for him, and it would be so easy to just leave._ _

__L doesn't do easy things, though, and he doesn't give up. He's started this case, and he'll see it through to end. He'll see Light Yagami behind bars, or maybe to the electric chair. The thought lodges in him, thick and heavy, and to block it out, he tilts his head slightly and says, "Light, have I ever mentioned how much I like your hair?"_ _

__He does, actually. It's a nice color - strange, considering his genetics, but then he is an abnormality in more ways than one. It hangs in his eyes, makes him look boyish and young, even if he acts as though he's neither of those things. His hair is beautiful. He is beautiful. It's such a simple thing, and it's startling to remember. But L says it just to fill the silence, another facetious, empty-headed remark, same as he always uses to throw people off when they're getting too close, asking the right questions._ _

__Light shakes his head and slumps, but he's smiling. "You're so full of it," he says, rolling over to face away from L. "I'm going back to sleep." His voice is kind, and it spears through L like something sharp and perilous._ _

__Sometimes he wishes he could sleep, too, just so he wouldn't have to be awake._ _

__"Good morning," he says quietly, as Light nods off again._ _

__

__\---_ _

__**tbc** _ _

__\---_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm hoping all the timeline skipping around wasn't too confusing? Because it's going to continue into the next few chapters (which I have mostly written but am going to avoid posting for a bit so I can bulk up my in-reserve word count because I write rather slowly and don't want to drag this out forever.)
> 
> Things to look forward to: sex! arguments! aiber and wedy! (some other things, maybe?) Once again, thank you for reading.  
> Any and all reviews are appreciated. Thank you for reading.


	2. lie, awake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright, here we are with numero dos. this chapter, like the last one, is rather slow. if you're looking for fast-paced action, look elsewhere. there is the barest hint of plot here, but it's mostly just set-up and these ten thousand or so words are more or less devoted to lethargic make-outs and weird, circular thought processes. the first five or so chapters are going to be like this, I'd wager, so that I can get my ducks in a row. the second arc is when things really kick into gear (and yes, this fic has arcs now. I have big plans, guys. BIG PLANS.)

_"See the omniscient gods oblivious of suffering man; and man, though idiotic, and knowing not what he does, yet full of the sweet things of love and gratitude."_  
\- Herman Melville, _Moby Dick: or, the White Whale._

 

\---

 

Light has a date. Well, in truth, Light and L both have a date, and with Misa at that. He's not sure if the situation is ironic or just unfoundedly ridiculous, but either way, he's not looking forward to it. Then again, at least this way he might have someone to talk to. They're trudging down the hall to the main elevator, and Light lets L lead, mostly because he's not even sure of which floor Misa's on. He's never asked, and if someone had told him anyway, it's since slipped his mind.

L's hair is even more mussed than usual, and Light tries not to smirk to himself at the state of it. L has been characteristically cold all day, but he'd certainly warmed up under Light's touch, pressed into another wall, same as last night, and manhandled into quite a state.

Light really does have to try hard to repress that smirk.

"Won't it be kind of awkward?" he asks once they reach the elevator, unassumingly, as if he's just making casual conversation. Truly, he's more interested in what L's general reaction will be than he is the actual content of his answer. "You, Misa and I, all together?" It's not as if he's predicting uncontrollable jealousy or something equally infantile and needless from L's side. He'd just like to know how he feels about the situation, and it's not like Light can just straight-out ask. He would never get a truthful answer that way.

"In what way?" L responds flatly, the lollipop sucked between his teeth slurring the words slightly.

"Oh, I don't know," Light says, deciding to go for the heart of the matter, "in the way that we just jerked each other off in the supply closet half an hour ago?"

L slides his wide eyes over to him, looking at Light like he's just said something insultingly stupid. Light hates that look. No one's ever given it to him before L. "You're not thinking of telling Amane-san that, are you?"

Light scoffs. "Of course not."

"Nor am I," L says, plucking the lollipop out of his mouth. His voice is flat, but there's something like a slight frown on his face, though it's hard to tell with the ragged strands of his hair blocking most of the view. "That settled, I can't see what would make it awkward."

Light feels the aggravation starting to seep in, though he's not completely sure why. It's something in L's manner, something biting in the blank-faced obtuseness that isn't usually there. Light lets his brow crumple, affecting hurt, because it's maybe more justified at this point than blatant annoyance. "Do you just not have any emotions or something?"

L's eyes narrow at that, and it's a foreign look on him, keen and forbidding. Light's not sure, but he thinks he might have pissed him off. God, he hopes he's pissed him off.

"Oh, I'm sure I have many," he responds, crunching his lollipop off its stick with a slick, garbled sound. "Just very few regarding you or your girlfriend."

That hits harder than it probably should, but just as hard as L likely meant it to. Light doesn't know what L's trying to achieve by being a raging asshole today, but if it's to make Light forget every kind, forgiving thing he'd thought that morning - in the cool dark, waking to L's prone, white body spread out on the bed beside him, seeming for the moment such a worthy, necessary person - he's certainly succeeding.

"What is your deal today?" Light snaps.

"I'm not sure what you mean by that," L says, as the numbers light up, one by one. They must almost be to the right floor, Light's sure, because it feels as if they've been stuck in here together for far too long.

"Fine," he says, "whatever."

"Fine." L's facing forward again, back an ugly hunch, and Light really wishes they weren't on their way to see Misa, so that he could just shove him against something and kiss him quiet, make him stop with the baiting glances and curt tone, make him open up and let Light inside - and _god_. Light half considers pressing the emergency stop button and just throwing L down on the ground and fucking him here, getting in him for the first time, and not letting up until L relents, until he does what Light wants, gives him what he ought to. Until L is putty in his hands.

The image from yesterday wobbles through him with sickening speed, and all at once he realizes that his thoughts sound suspiciously like the thoughts of somebody who's considering gaining control through sex, which is just _not true_. But it's okay to have thoughts, isn't it? Even if they're bad, even if they're shameful and cruel and make his stomach dip warmly with arousal. It's not as if he'd actually decided to fuck L in the elevator. And even if he did, he doubts L would go along with it.

Light sighs, wants to press a hand to his forehead to block out the constant stream of contradicting thoughts - good person, bad person - but he knows that would just look suspicious. Instead, he rubs at his temples and plays it off like L has wounded his oh so delicate heart.

"You really have no problem with the fact that I have a girlfriend?" he asks, quietly, like it could be either a challenge or a peace offering. He's not sure which it is - whatever L makes it, he supposes, and it's rather a strange jolt to lend even that much control to another person. But then, it's L, isn't it? L's got more control over Light's life than Light does at this point, and he's still not totally sure how that happened. He's also not sure why he doesn't even really mind it so much anymore.

"The only one who appears to have a problem with Light-kun's girlfriend," L says, cocking his head and shooting Light a smart glance, "is Light-kun himself, which is a matter that only concerns me so far as it relates to the Kira case." His tone is casual, but there's an underlying inquiry in it. This, of course, is just another test.

Light rolls his eyes. "Oh, yeah? And how does this fit into you're brilliant theory?" It's not like L is far off the mark regarding his feelings, or lack thereof, for Misa, but he really can't see what that's supposed to have to do with Kira. 

"You were only using Misa Amane to help you kill criminals, and pretended to reciprocate her feelings for you in order to keep her under your thumb." Light goes for his token protest, the usual _"I'm not Kira, Ryuzaki. How many times do we have to have this conversation?"_ lighting on his tongue before he can even think to say it, more for appearance's sake than anything else, because he knows that nothing he says is going to convince L of his innocence, no matter how reasonable his arguments are. L is not a reasonable thing. 

But he's cut off before he can even begin. "That is, of course, only the case if you are indeed Kira, of which there remains only a slim possibility," L continues, and Light thinks he can see him smirking, a twitch at the corner of his thin, white lips.

And of course that's a blatant lie if ever there was one. They both know that L fully believes that Light is Kira, and will accept no other answer, no matter what the evidence says. Pretending otherwise - that he's actually giving Light a fair chance, the benefit of the doubt - is just cruel. But then, L has always been cruel. A bad, bad person.

The elevator dings, but Light doesn't move.

"I would never do that to someone," he snaps, the anger roiling in his voice more real than he'd like it to be. The fact that L thinks that of him, that L - who is brilliant, who Light wishes he could truly like - has got it so wrong, so backwards, is more frustrating than the mere insult of being accused of mass murder. "Using someone's feelings to manipulate them," he says, pointedly, knowing L will get the message, "is _despicable_."

That's what L's doing to him. Or trying to, anyway. _Despicable._

"But cheating on them is just fine?" L asks, slumping out into the hallway. The elevator doors begin to slide closed and Light has to rush an arm in front of them in order to make it out in time.

"I - " he starts, then backtracks. He could explain it reasonably - could explain how only bad people cheat, and how Light is not a bad person, and how L _is_ , and so it's clearly not cheating, not his fault - but L is just so unreasonable, so set on ruining, on _tormenting_ Light as much as he possibly can, that there's no way he'll understand. So, instead, superficially, he just says, "It's not like that. Misa and I are barely dating."

"You just said she was your girlfriend," L counters.

Light grits his teeth.

He's not winning this way, so he decides on a different strategy. One that L surely can't say no to, because it serves his own interests as well. "Well," Light says, "maybe I was just trying to make you jealous." They've been fucking around long enough that it won't be strange for Light to have developed feelings for him. In fact, the best way to play this is like he's the naive, lovesick teenager, swept away by uncontrollable regard for his older, wiser and terribly inspirational friend.

Yes, that's good. Brilliant, even. No one could possibly blame him that way. If their affair - as it were - ever got out, everyone would look on L with disgust, and Light with uncontrollable sympathy. That's how it should be, and how it will be. Not that anyone should ever find out, but it's always good to have a back-up plan.

L, though, doesn't go along with it. "Were you?" he asks dumbly, continuing on towards Misa's door. "It doesn't appear to have worked."

Light scowls. What the hell is wrong with him today? That sweet, needy role he's been playing for the past couple of weeks - false as it had been - is gone, evaporated, and what's left in its place is cold and cruel, and when they get out of this stupid, needless date, Light is going to bend L over the nearest flat surface and make him nice and pliant again.

Maybe it's for the best, though. Last night, or this morning, or whenever it had been, waking to L next to him, close and familiar and somehow terribly attractive in the early gloom, had softened him too much. Made him forget what this is really about, what L really is.

"Yeah," Light says, and the hurt is startlingly easy to fake, "I can see that." He sighs, following L to the door, and trying to sound as vulnerable as possible. "You can be really awful sometimes, Ryuzaki. Did you know that?"

L raps on the door twice, with a loose, slow fist. His face his blank, but his eyes are strangely thick with something black and gutting."Yes, Light-kun," he says. "I did know that."

 

\---

 

"Come on, Ryuzaki," Misa whines, voice hitting shrill notes that make Light wince, but L barely notices. He's been professionally trained to withstand most forms of torture, including auditory overload. "Can't you just go to the bathroom or something? Light and I only need five minutes together." She holds out her hand, wiggling her five fingers passionately, as if that's somehow going to add weight to her argument.

Her other hand is cocked on her hip, pose one he's sure she's practiced in the mirror plenty of times, as she shows him wide, pleading eyes. L isn't moved, and barely reacts to her entreaty aside from the vague amusement he displays at the latter part.

"Really," he says, remaining hunched over a large, perfect square of tiramisu, "only five? I would have thought Light-kun would need at least six." He shovels a forkful into his mouth, chewing loudly. Watari makes the best tiramisu.

He feels Light tense on the sofa next to him and, though doesn't not look his way, L's sure he's being shot one of those sharp, echoing Light Yagami death glares. The ones that have decreased markedly in intensity in the last month or so. Apparently Kira glares better.

Truly, Light's been insufferable all day. He's playing innocent as usual, but with a heaping of doleful romanticism piled on top, which is as new as it is awful to behold. L's not even sure that Light's aware of what a lie he is, through-and-through, more an idea of himself that he's made up than he is a person. His innocence is fake, and his romantic feelings are fake, and L's sure the sleepy, adoring look he had given him in the early hours of the morning had been fake as well. 

Light lies when he sleeps, and he wakes with a story on his tongue.

"Ew, I'm only talking about kissing, you creep," Misa snaps, bouncing on her feet like a toy doll. In some ways, she's perfect for Light. Maybe not as good of a liar, but at least as constant of one. L's sure Kira would have been just as proficient as an actor as he is as a mass murderer. "Besides," Misa huffs, and there's something catty in her voice which is just as inorganic as her blonde hair and red lips, "I'm sure Light can go for hours."

Light blanches next to him, and if it wasn't against his better interest, L would probably have actually laughed out loud.

"I'm sorry, Misa-san," he starts, but only because he knows Light will undoubtably cut him off, "but I'd have to contest that - "

"Oh my god, can we not talk about this?" Light's voice is rife with annoyance and disapproval - he's, of course, too refined to stoop to such subjects - but he doesn't seem half as panicked by the possibility of Misa finding out about his infidelity than L might have expected. Then again, despite it going against his highly treasured moral code, it's doubtful Light actually cares what Misa, of all people, thinks of him. Which is just more evidence in favor of the Second Kira theory. If Light truly doesn't remember, he's probably got no idea what he'd been doing with Misa.

But then, if he's really innocent for the time being, what is he doing with L?

"What would Light-kun like to talk about?" L asks, around another mouthful of tiramisu.

"How about _anything else_?" Light snaps, glaring at him, and that shoots something uncomfortably warm through L's lower belly. Maybe he's just become conditioned to associate Light's ire with impending sexual experimentation. Maybe Light's eyes just look exceedingly _pretty_ when they're glowing at him with annoyance. It's not as if it matters, either way. The game is all that matters.

"Ryuuga Hideki!" Misa squeals suddenly, and Light's brow crinkles as L turns to face her again.

"Yes?" he say. Responding immediately when called is the first rule of having an alias. 

Misa roles her eyes. "No, the the _real_ Ryuuga Hideki. I'm gonna be in a movie with him," she tells them, seemingly excited by this news for no reason that L can understand. Ryuuga Hideki is a terrible actor. "Isn't that so cool?" She's bouncing on her feet again, and she really does look like a pin-up come to life, doesn't she? She is a false, made-up thing, and even her excitement is mostly a lie. Her tells are easy, and L spots them all within seconds. She doesn't care about Ryuuga Hideki. "Light, you're proud of Misa-Misa, right?"

She cares about Light. That, at least, is not a lie.

Light barely looks like he's noticed being spoken to, alternately turning sharp glances on L and examining his nails uninterestedly. "Sure, Misa," he says, perfunctorily. "Although," he continues, like he really doesn't notice how desperate she is for his approval, "that's kind of a superficial concern, considering we're trying to catch a mass murderer here." He does, of course - he must. He knows what she wants from him and denies simply out of blatant cruelty. L can think of no other explanation.

"I know," Misa says, but she wilts visibly, falling back into her chair. "I just - I figured we could use the good news, you know? Especially since you and Ryuzaki haven't made, like, any progress on the Kira case lately."

It doesn't sound like a purposeful jab to L's ears, but Light frowns anyway, expression growing twice as bored and offended as it had previously been. He opens his mouth to say something, but L's really not interested in watching Light tear the poor girl to smithereens, so he cuts in with, "Yes, thank you, Misa-san. I feel quite cheered." He demonstrates as much by pouring himself another cup of tea.

"I don't care how _you_ feel," she tells him, displaying her usual infantile pout, but quickly continues with, "But it's awesome, right?"

"Very awesome," L says.

Light rolls his eyes. "It's great, Misa."

That gets a genuine smile out of her, and it makes her look softened and kind, like a real person instead of the cover of a magazine. "Thanks," she says, almost sheepishly, and takes a sip of her bright pink health drink.

Light's eyes shift back to L immediately after, and stay on him for the rest of the date. Misa is even more bubbly than usual for next half hour or so, and Light just rubs at the bridge of his nose, looking bored and statuesque, as L devours the rest of the tiramisu.

 

\---

 

They go back to their bedroom immediately after lunch, because Light insists on needing to brush his teeth, though L suspects that he's just trying to get him into bed again. Teenage boys are naturally concupiscent, and Light especially, who no doubt has something to prove in this arena, goes for sex as often as he can get it. Or rather, the adolescent trend of hands down trousers and excessive grinding that they've settled into of late, the not-quite-sex that still feels close and hot and penetrative, despite that lack of actual penetration. It's obvious that Light hasn't been very sexually active with anyone before, despite his popularity among his peers, and, like all mammals when introduced to things that are both new and pleasurable, he can't seem to get enough of it.

He's shooting L coy, clever glances in the mirror, apparently forgoing their earlier squabble, and L's not sure he likes that. He's fine with Light roughing him up and getting him off as often as he needs to, he's actually come to be quite comfortable with having those eager, golden hands all over him, but the reason he's doing this in the first place is not for the sex alone. He wants to delve deep, and having a fight is a good start - Light baring emotion, however falsified it is, can only bring progress - but it's worth nothing it he pretends it had never happened after the fact.

So L, slumped as he is against the doorframe, waits until Light has washed out his mouth and turned around before saying, casually, and with his eyeballs rolled towards the ceiling, "Light-kun's not a very good boyfriend, is he?"

Light's expression tightens, and he looks like he can't decide whether to frown or roll his eyes. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing in particular," L says, pushing off the wall to slump out into the bedroom. Shrugging him off is a surefire way to get Light's attention. The only thing he hates more than being under L's microscope is being ignored by him. From the crease in his brow and the tension in his stance, it's clear he'd rather be accused of a hundred crimes than be deemed uninteresting.

"What," he laughs, playing cool, but he's always been a warm thing, hot with life and fire and self-righteous anger, "so you really are jealous of Misa or something?"

L can tell that Light wants him to be, has been able to tell since their fight in the hallway. Light wants him kicking and screaming and pitching a fit that he's not Light's one and only, which, L's sure, is some sort of cliche high school trope that he wouldn't know how to begin to fake, even if he wanted to. It serves his purposes far better to let Light stew in his own self-obsessed frustrations than it does to flatter him. Giving Light what he wants will get L nowhere. Taking it, holding it just out his reach and bargaining for scraps, that's the way to go.

"No, Light-kun," he says simply.

Light pulls on the chain then, tugging L closer, and he seems to click into the game then, catching on a bit more slowly than usual, but taking up his lover-boy role with frightening ease. "I wish you would be," he says, once L is pulled right up against him, his breath rushing soft against L's lips with a ticklish hatefulness the crawls under L's skin and has him thrumming with the despicable urge to hit him and kiss him all at once. It's such a frustrating, ugly lie, no matter how factually true it is, because Light's dressing his desires up in tragic romanticism instead of leaving them bare and cruel, the way they're born.

"No, you don't," he says back, voice a cold stone, because he suddenly doesn't want Light anywhere near him. The thought of his touch lurches through L in wave of something great and horrible, and he wants him off and out and far, far away.

He starts to step back, but Light just grabs him closer.

"Yes, I do," he says, cupping L's jaw and pressing their foreheads together. His voice is soft, but unkind, with a taunting edge that fills L up and makes him hard, makes him want out of this room and off this chain. "I wish you actually cared about me."

It's a lie, he is such a liar, and at this point, Light isn't trying to disguise it as truth, just pressing his lips gently across L's face, keeping him so close, angling his hips so that he aches with the pressure and forcing the idea onto him. _I care about you_ , his hands whisper, as they run over L's thin skin, but of course, it's a lie, because what else could it be?

"And why would you wish for something like that?" L grits out, grinding back, forcing the sensation on himself, because there's no way he's backing away from it. It sends pings of sharp pleasure through his groin, up is spine, to roll in with the tides in his head. There's a drawn-out, aching moment, and then Light is grabbing him by the face, fingertips bruising into L's skin as he pulls him close and kisses him with something angry and pure and breaking. L sucks his tongue when it slips into his mouth, but forces his own back just as hard, not submitting half as well as he has been lately.

But it hurts not to fight just then, and Light is egging the anger out of him, pushing him into a treacherous madness of sensation that L doesn't know from his own thoughts. It gets twisted up inside of him, and when they stumble toward the bed, half tripping on a mess of wires and knocking over a lamp in the process, L doesn't go down easily when Light shoves him onto him back.

They land with a soft thud, wrapping around each other, close and hot and tinged with a violent friction that seeps through L's skin, licking at the tips of his fingers and the points of his sharp teeth when he bites down on Light's lip. The wavering groan he gets in response is worth the way that Light grabs his wrists and pins them to the bed, spreading him out and open underneath and clawing his way close.

His smirk is smart and hateful as he licks at the cut on his lip. "Why are you letting me do this, Ryuzaki?" he murmurs, voice vibrating against the shell of L's ear.

"You told me you knew," L says back, voice low, like if he lets it too far out it'll get away from him.

"I want to hear it from you," Light says, tongue circling his earlobe before trailing down his neck, leave the skin hot and wet in his wake. "Tell me why you're doing this." His whisper sends sharp pincers of feeling shaking through L, under his skin and into his bloodstream.

Light pulls back to meet his eyes, to get a good look at him, and L stares back hard, gritting his teeth. "Only if you tell me, too," he says. 

That makes Light laugh, tossing his head back to knock his bangs in front of calculating eyes, maybe obscuring whatever dishonest thing he sees in L just then, because he almost looks slightly fond. Like, not only is this a game, but it's a _fun_ game. And that's, L thinks - maybe that okay. Sometimes that can be okay.

"That's easy," Light breathes in his warm, heavy voice, leaning down to brush his lips possessively against L's temple. "I enjoy it. I enjoy touching you," he says, trailing his lips along L's cheekbone, down to his chin, settling just before his lips, "making you squirm." At that, he slips his palm down L's stomach, over the sharp cut of his hips to cup him through his jeans, alternately squeezing and gently petting.

L doesn't bother to try not to follow Light words. He squirms.

"I enjoy it as well," he says, in a rush of breath that slips its way out his throat almost by accident, but it's as good an explanation as any. True enough, too.

"But that's not the only reason, right?" Light says, unbuttoning L's jeans one-handed, and with enough ease that you'd think he'd had more practice than he truly has. "The great L never does anything without a really good reason, right?" He phrases it like a question, but it's not - it's an accusation. They've been dancing around this subject the whole week, and they keep their steps moving even now, never saying quite what they're doing with each other - _to_ each other - but knowing it so truly and innately that it barely needs explaining.

"Neither does Kira, I'm sure," L murmurs back, bending to accommodate Light's fingers as they trail down and under his thighs. He says it like he says anything, flat and unassuming, not a syllable belying the weight of the words. Weight they only truly have because Light hears them that way, hears the accusation in every word, and instinctively lashes out against it, to punish L for the things he says, for his own guilt.

Light reels back, a snarl that might be half a smile breaking his otherwise aroused expression, bending his pretty features into daunting caricatures. Dracula, Heathcliff - all the best storybook monsters are beautiful, L thinks. Light shoves him away slightly, but L is flattened to the bed and there's not much further he can go. "Which has nothing to do with us," he snaps, which is maybe more out of place than it ought to be. This is the game, Light knows that - _"Yes, you're Kira," - "No, I'm not," - Yes, you are," - "No, I'm not,"_ \- This is how they've always played it. "Can you not just for one minute separate Kira and I in your head into two distinct beings?"

He looks seriously enraged by this fact, too, as if they hadn't all been taking it as a given that Light is regarded as Kira by default in L's mind in all given situations. Like he believes his innocence so fully that he and Kira being anything _but_ separate is foreign and unaccountable. To L, it's quite the opposite. The idea that Kira could be anyone else is simply unallowable.

L is always right.

And if Light Yagami isn't a criminal mastermind, then what the hell is L doing with him?

"I'm afraid not," is all he says in reply, "That would make things far too complicated." It's the truth, but it's wrapped in a lie, sold like an emotional dilemma instead of a logical one.

Light's laugh in response is far too cynical to mesh with his idealistic, golden image, and L knows he's getting a better peek behind the mask than Light has ever intended to give him. 

"Things are already complicated, _Ryuzaki_." He enunciates the name ridiculously, like a jape. A cruel joke, at somebody's expense, though L's not 100% percent sure whose. His, for selling the farce? Or Light's, for going along with it? "Sleeping with a suspect?" he nearly spits, leaning over L with an overbearing presence that he seems to have pulled out of the ether, the shining ends of his hair flicking over the tip of L's nose. It feels good. He's still hard.

"Do you know what would happen if my dad found out about this?" Light breathes in his ear, maybe meaning it to sound threatening, but the words sting with arousal, a tight sort of coiled heat that bubbles up out of Light, through L, to hang between them like some thick, visceral tether. Just another chain. "Or anyone on the investigation team? You know what they'd think of you, right?"

L doesn't bother trying not to roll his eyes.

"Whatever you wanted them to think, I suspect," he says.

Light sneers, and moves to bite L, teeth digging almost caressingly into his lips. He pulls back with an aching tug, and L quivers under it. It feels better than it should, and that's maybe the worst part.

"They'd think you were some twisted pervert who forced me into it," he says, leaning back down, tilting his head around to whisper into L's ear. "They'd take me away, your precious prisoner. Then who would you blame for being Kira?" He's playing with L's hair, twisting his fingers in it softly, almost reverently, like he can't pull too hard or something will fracture. It doesn't last long. "Who would you throw accusations at, just so that you can look like you know what you're doing?" He's pulling at L's roots then, tugging him up into a bent-back stretch that shoves L's groin straight up against Light's thigh.

L's voice catches in his throat, choking him softly as Light bears down on him, pressing him so deep into the bed he feels like he could just _sink_. Like they could disappear and never come up for air. He meets Light's hard eyes, hips jerking up to grind back against his, so close it's claustrophobic.

"They won't take you away," he says against Light's lips, warm breath hitting them both in the face. "I will bring you to justice."

He half expects that to be the final straw, for Light to throw him off, label him a lost cause and be done with the whole sorry mess of this staged seduction, but something in the words sparks him, just makes him harder against L's hip, pushing in deep, one hand shoving down L's zipper and slipping inside.

"I want to fuck you," L feels against his ear, and his body quakes a little at that, the words eliciting an almost conditioned reaction than makes him want to run, run, run away, as fast as he can.

"Not now, Light," he says, because it's better than any excuse or explanation as to why _he can't_ , and he owes none, anyway.

Light frowns, but melts it quickly into a smirk. "What, are you afraid?" he asks, trailing one hand up to play over L's nipple through his shirt, voice as taunting as it is self-satisfied, but it goes strangely honest with the next words. "I won't hurt you." He pulls back to look down at L, see him full in the face. "I won't hurt you," he repeats.

L stares back up at him, and doesn't really know what to say to that, or what he even truly thinks. There are a million possibilities, so many factors to catalogue, so much to deduce. All that floats to the forefront of his mind is, _Light is a liar._

Light, who feels so good against him. Light, who has nice eyes and warm hands. Light, who says he won't hurt him. _Light is a liar._

" _Not now_ , Light," L repeats.

Light groans, but listens, tucking his head into L's shoulder and leaning down to jerk him off with venomous intensity.

 

\---

 

Light is angry when he touches L, and he is angry when L bites back his harsh gasp, and fucking _furious_ when L comes in his palm. There's no reasonable explanation for it, no A equals B equals a cause for Light's thundering mood, there is just something in the two of them, something in the moment, that stabs him with such weighty, unaccountable _feeling_ that he's not sure what to do but rage it all out. Anger is easy. Anger at L, especially, is so practiced, it's practically second nature. He can do it with his eyes closed. And does.

By the time he gets L off, he's decided that that's enough, that he doesn't even want L touching him, taking from him whatever it is he always takes. He'd started this with some object, to get inside, to work his way into L without him truly noticing, but he'd played his hand too soon, and there's no chance of having it like he'd wanted to, so the best course of action would just be to pull out, retreat and re-strategize for the next time. The next touch in whatever dark corner they end up in.

But as soon as he pulls away, L is digging his long, spindly fingers into Light's hips, pressing him to the bed and unbuttoning his jeans, ducking his head in the next moment to practically salivate all over Light's cock, before taking it in his mouth, only adjusting for a second before sucking it all the way in. Light's hips cant without him meaning them to, and he briefly debates trying to shove L off before deciding that refusing a blow-job would look too suspicious, and that aside, is just fairly counterintuitive on all fronts.

L's clearly practiced on enough popsicles to know what he's doing with the cock he's got his lips wrapped around, sucking it harder, taking more, like something he wants instead of something he's forcing himself to do for the sake of the investigation.

They both know what this is, and it's not a budding romance on the job. L is taking advantage of him, and therefore Light has the right to take advantage of all the potential benefits that that offers. L's hot, cruel mouth is just one of them. Light thrusts into it without a care of whether or not he's hurting him, sort of hopes he is, and doesn't take long after that to come thickly down his throat, anger pouring out of him as his nerves thrill with the feeling. His head spins, and the room spins with it. He can't count the number of problems he's sure could be solved if L would just let Light fuck him.

Light wilts immediately after, settling into the cushions like he'd planned it this way all along, that that was L bending to his will, instead of the other way around. 

"That was really good," Light groans, pulling L up to speak into his hair. It's feathery, an awful mess, and it feels good tickling his face. "How are you so good at that?" he asks, without really asking. There's something giddy edging his tone, like the anger has flipped completely in on itself to something like contentment.

"I'm good at everything," is all L says in response, not looking at him. Whether he's bodily exhausted from the work he'd just done on Light, or his earlier orgasm, or the tenuous, unsettling fights that had preceded this particular romp, Light neither knows nor cares. He pulls him close, dragging his hands all over L, making sure he's there, close and comfortable and not really his enemy. Not truly.

Maybe they've faked friendship so well, they've slipped into it. Maybe Light's just such a good person, he can forgive all L's wrongdoings. Maybe it's just the sex, twisting up his head and making him think calming, gentle things that he'd never consider otherwise.

"Except for social skills," Light says, amusing himself greatly in his post-orgasmic haze, "and personal hygiene. And solving this case." The last shakes through him as a joke, wrapped up in a bizarre sort of dark, dirty humor that he hardly ever indulges in. Clearly L is corrupting him. He snuggles closer against L's stick-bone limbs and mess of black hair. He feels very corrupted.

"Light-kun." L's voice cuts through the heady quiet after a moment, a stab in the dark, and Light's sure he knows what he's going to say before he even begins to say it.

It's always the same song and dance, always, " _But I have solved this case, Light-kun,"_ like the world only makes sense, only spins properly on its axis, if Light is Kira and Kira is Light. Maybe for L, it does. Light can't decide whether he wants to get angry about that, and ultimately supposes that must mean that he's not. He shifts on the cushions, pressing his forehead to L's cheek. His skin is so warm, and this is such an awful situation that it's gone all the way around the circuit, and flipped back to okay. Him, here, with L - this is okay.

Light doesn't let L get on with whatever he means to continue with, just presses their lips together and breathes him in, a calming, quieting sort of touch that shakes through the both of them. It's more than okay. It's nice.

"There's a part of me that hates you so much," he half-laughs, comfortable enough now to let the truth fade out of him, if only a little. L stiffens, but not for longer than a moment. He must understand.

Yes, that's the thing about he and L. They may not like each other, may be awful to one another in the subtle, aching ways that tear a person apart, but they _understand_ each other. Even when L goes on and on about his precious theories and deductions that make no earthly sense, even then, Light _understands_. L is a strange creature who speaks in a foreign tongue, but Light has cracked the code, knows his language, knows _him_.

It's sad, almost, because under different circumstances, they could have been so great together.

But then - then what does that even mean? What circumstances? This is something that Light _knows_ , knows like his breath and the lines on his palms, but he's not sure _how_ he knows it. That seems to be a common theme of late. There are ideas in his head and he doesn't know how they got there, only that something in him insists they're the truth. But maybe that's wrong. The idea of L as his enemy, as his equal but opposite, is so deeply ingrained into him, but it doesn't have to be reality. Here they are, sharing a bed, practically fucking - why shouldn't they be on the same side? Not just superficially, the investigation team, but internally, too. L's not so different from him, really, he's just a bit more cynical, a bit more cruel. Light can help him.

Hell, Light _should_ help him. It's practically his moral duty.

He turns, sitting up, and looking down at L where he lolls next to him, bleary-eyed and dull-looking, but Light's sure that there's so much going on in that head of his, that brilliant head. "And then," he continues his earlier tangent, even though minutes have passed in between, because he's sure L can catch up, "there's another part of me that really, really likes you."

L blinks at him.

"Well, isn't that nice," he says to the ceiling, barely lending the words a single dip of meaning.

"I mean it," Light says, because, of course, L thinks he's playing another head game, making up another strategy - but that's what _L_ does, not Light. Light's not like that.

"Of course you do," L says, still not looking anywhere but straight ahead, up and up, like he can see right through the roof. Like he can see through anything. He almost sounds annoyed, actually, and that annoys Light. "You fully believe everything you say. That's the problem."

Light tries not to let his brow crumple, tries not to let on that he's not even really sure what L's talking about. This is a new strategy. This isn't something Light's heard before. L usually insists that he's lying about everything. If anything, this is probably just a different method of accusation, one that L is leading up to, so Light makes sure to watch his words.

"i would think that would be a good thing," he says, "having conviction." Not sounding overly confused, but unsure enough to make it clear that whatever point L is trying to make isn't really connecting. Which is L's fault, of course - he's brilliant at figuring things out, but woe, if he has to attempt to explain them to anyone else. It tends to end in tears. Usually Matsuda's.

"That's not what I mean," L says, after a long pause, and then, quite suddenly, he's up, having readjusted his jeans at some point that Light hadn't taken notice of, looking for all the world just as mussed as he usually does. He paces the length of the room, or at least as far as the handcuff chain will allow him to reach, stopping and turning automatically, like the length between he and Light is already lodged somewhere in his brain. There's something striking and probably tragic in that, but Light can't quite spot it now, and isn't even sure he wants to.

He stands, too, watching L zig-zag back and forth.

"What do you mean?" he asks, taking the moment to button his own shirt and set his hair right. He'll need to comb it again.

After a thin, drawn-out moment, L stops and faces him. There's no head-tilting, no lollipops sticking out of his lips, and though L's not standing particularly straight, the slump isn't half as pronounced as usual. Without all of his usual off-putting mannerisms, L looks strangely real in that moment. Like all the rest of the time, he's just a mirage of himself. A caricature. He's not bothering with the mask this time, and it's half thrilling, half terrifying. Part of Light just wants to cover him up again.

Because whatever he says is going to be something that Light doesn't want to hear.

"You're not you, Light," he says simply. His hair is drooping in front of his eyes, but instead of being comical, like usual, it's - weirdly attractive. "Something is different. Something has changed. Something is… missing." L looks down at his fingers for a moment, then back up to catch Light's gaze squarely, and hold it hard. "Does any of that seem true to you?"

The words seep sickly into him and don't let up. His immediate reaction is to reject them, reject all of it as another strategy - and maybe it is, it probably is, but then it's a really good one. Because that - there's something in L's words then that strikes Light somewhere that he's afraid to look. Like there's some sewn-up hidden compartment in him that he forgot the location of, and lost the key to, but it's there, it's _there_ \- or, no. No. That's crazy.

L is crazy - an illogical thing, he can't help it - and he's making Light crazy, too. Because Light is fine, better than fine, really. He's working for justice, he's working with L, he's _with_ L. And L needs him, needs him there to keep his head on straight, to stop him when he comes up with crazy conspiracy theories like this - not buy into them.

Light is fine. L is the one who is _so not_ fine. L is always the problem - and he needs Light to help solve him.

"No," he says calmly, because getting angry won't help. Light has been angry at L for so long, for some reason he can't really remember - the imprisonment, the accusations; it sounds true, but it feels false - and it's not gotten him anywhere. "What it seems like is a distraction tactic so you don't have to think about _us_."

And Light knows the way he says it is childish and overly romantic, but it's still true, unlike anything L says. L's giving him a look almost like disappointment, like he'd been expecting something else. Like Light is a student who'd almost gotten the right answer, but changed it at the last moment. He looks like he's going to say something else, demand more, and Light almost wants him to, so that he'll have a reason to feel this odd and displaced, but L lets it go, allowing whatever the moment had been to slip away.

"Us?" L says, and from the way his face shifts, Light thinks maybe he's lifted his eyebrows, but they're mostly obscured by his hair, so it's hard to tell. "I apologize," he says, and his voice has gone lighter, almost humorous at this point - whatever weight had been there before gone now, "was I supposed to be doodling your name in my notebook with hearts around it?"

Light even pops a smile at that. "Couldn't hurt."

It pulls its way out of him, something unexpected, and unexpectedly kind. There's a generosity of sentiment swirling in him, and he feels suddenly like a better person than he has in a long time. L has been dragging him down, it seems, and that's not how it's supposed to be. If anything, he should be helping L up.

And it's not just his imagination, he's sure, that L is feeling it, too. There's been a heaviness, a pall on them all this time, since that first startling introduction at the commencement ceremony, through every word and gesture and touch. Interacting with L is like playing a long, complicated game that you don't know all the rules to - like chess on a sugar high - and it can be so, so riveting, a dance of strategy and quiet mayhem, but it's also _exhausting_. Light is exhausted. And he doesn't have to look at L's dark circles or his gaunt pallor to know that L is probably even more so. Light's got no idea about his past, or his history, knows only that he's been catching criminals for a _very_ long time, and L doesn't strike him as the kind of person who take breaks.

It hits him just then that maybe, just maybe, L is the way he is - blunt and cruel and cold - because he doesn't know how to be anything else.

And this moment, it's like a breath of fresh air. Like the tiniest, frailest instant of peace in an ongoing whirlwind of accusations and denials and necessary emotionlessness. Maybe it's a bad time - hell, it's probably the worst time, in the middle of a case of this magnitude - but Light wants to help L slow down, to slow down with him and just find a place to hide for a little while.

"Sometimes, Light," L says, and there's something easy in his expression that Light doesn't really recognize, but enjoys all the same, "I really do like you, too."

This is good, this can be good. They don't need to always play games. They don't need to play games at all. If L could just trust him, if he would just listen, he would realize Light's innocence, and then they could track down the real Kira together, they could be an unstoppable team, _together_. But that's, that's a different matter altogether. For now, he just tugs on the chain, lightly, pulling L back to the bed, but not to his lap. L lets himself be pulled, settling next to Light on the cushions.

Light trails a hand through L's hair, brushing it out of his eyes. L just keeps looking at him, still studying him, of course, but it's less clinical, less far away and detective-like, and more informal - close and almost intimate. That's not so bad. He doesn't mind that sort of scrutiny half as much.

"I like that," Light says, pulling his hand back, and he's referring to the way L had said his name, "when you drop the honorific." L's brow twists, and it seems as if he hadn't even noticed that he'd done it. Light understands that. Sometimes he says L instead of Ryuzaki without actually meaning to. It's just that he thinks of L as L, and nothing else. "It feels like you're acting like a real person, instead of just putting on a show for everyone," he continues, and adds, after some thought, "and for me."

There's something like a smile teasing the edges of L's expression. He looks unaccountably good like that. "Yes, I am quite a fake, aren't I?" he says. "We have that in common, I suppose." There's nothing accusing in the words, even though there could have been, would have been, any other day this week. But today is different. This moment is different.

"We have a lot in common," Light responds, settling back against the pillows, gently tugging at L to follow him. L concedes easily, and he truly does look _so tired_. Light lets him settle against his chest, strokes a hand through his hair, and thinks maybe if he can get L to sleep, that will be a good start. A start of what - he's not sure. He just knows that if they go on the way they've been going, it's not going to end well for anyone.

An he doesn't want that, because despite all they've done to each other - despite the little, familiar voice in the back of Light's head that whispers, _he's your enemy_ \- Light thinks he might actually, truly and genuinely _like_ L.

 

\---

 

L sleeps long and he sleeps deep, and if he has dreams, they're feverish and half-clear and gone the moment he wakes, eyes cracking open in the warm, half-lit glow of the setting sun. It's mostly dark in the bedroom, but the glow of Light's laptop is cool and bright from where it rests, propped up in front of him.

"Did we miss a meeting?" L says, and chokes slightly on the words in his throat, whispering them softly.

Light's eyes flick up as soon as he speaks, and he looks refreshed and reordered, put back together after the startling intensity of their last encounter. L still feels rather wrecked and reeling from it, the mess of his hair flopped in his eyes, and his jaw aching slightly in the place where Light's fingers had gripped him so tightly, grabbing him close. He doesn't feel rejuvenated - in fact, sleep usually has the effect of exhausting him further, because it reintroduces what he's tricked his body into not needing, and all of a sudden he'll remember how good it feels to just stop for a little while.

Light smiles at him, and it looks so genuine that L decides on principal that he ought not to trust it.

"I called down and told them you were sleeping," he says, setting his laptop aside. "Since you barely ever rest, everyone understood. Matsuda wished you pleasant dreams." He says the last part with a deplorable, almost sheepish amusement. Like he feels bad for poking fun at such an easy target. That, at least, hadn't been a quality that had seemed inherent in the old Light.

And it's so strange to think of there _being_ an old Light, and a new one, and a Kira mixed up in it all, too. But the facts, as they stand, present very few other reasonable solutions. But then how reasonable is this? Has Light even truly changed, or is L just projecting a change onto him in order to justify his newly found… not fondness, per se, but something like it. An attraction, of sorts, not just to his body, but to every bit of him. Is the only one whose actually changed here L himself?

No, that can't be right. Something is definitely different in Light. It's not surface, so it's hard to see, because Light's surface is all put on, anyway, same as L's. No, it's something deeper than that, something far beneath the skin and hair and charming smile has shifted, grown younger, grown less powerful. His memory… is he lying, or does he really not remember things?

It's maybe an odd thought process to start upon as soon as he wakes up, but L has already lost an uncertain amount of time, and he'll have to make up for it.

"How long was I out?" he asks, sitting up to scratch at his head. He's hungry. He'll put a call into Watari to have something brought up, because he doesn't much feel like going down at the moment. Most of the team will be leaving or else going to their rooms soon, anyway.

"Not more than a couple of hours," Light says, and he's somehow shifted closer when L wasn't looking, to take L's chin in his hand, presumably examining the bags under his eyes, which are still as pronounced as ever, L's sure. "You should try to sleep some more."

L shrugs him off, looking elsewhere. "No, that's a lot for me. Too much, probably." 

He feels strangely like he wants a shower, wants to slop off whatever grinding weight has been pressing on him lately, and just be able to think clearly, but he doesn't make a move for the bathroom. If he showers, Light will have to wait in there with him, and although L's never been uncomfortable with nudity - he sees too much of people's private lives for it to even really register with him anymore - he's not sure he wants to strip down while Light watches on from the other side of a thin curtain. It feels so debilitating, all of a sudden, like all that faked submission is taking its toll, whether or not L had convinced himself that it wouldn't.

It's been so long since - since _then_ , but it still seeps in sometimes, and Light is just another thing that's digging into him, crawling under his skin and opening up caves and crevices there. It's not as if he'll back down, not like he'll decide to stop; he'll do whatever the job requires, he always has. He just hadn't thought it would be this difficult.

If Light's bothered by L casually ignoring his attempts at intimacy, he doesn't let it show, looks almost like he had been expecting that exact reaction. Instead, he pulls his laptop over, tipping the screen in L's direction.

"I figured you'd say that," he says, scrolling down he page to bring up some of Kira's crime statistics. "I did some work while you were asleep." Alarm bells should probably be going off in L's head at that - he did work on the computer, Light was alone and unwatched with access to headlines, L's surely slipped up - but he doesn't quite have the energy to be overly panicked. Light's internet history is monitored, and besides, L is almost 99% sure that as he currently is, Light is _not_ doing any of Kira's judgements. "What do you know about the company known as Yotsuba Corp.?"

L's brow crumples in thought as he pulls up rows of data in his head, automatically conjured by the name. He knows a little something about most everything, but not a lot about random, unimportant Japanese companies.

"Not a tremendous amount," he says. "Why?"

And when Light shows him the patterns in the killings, L knows he should be pleased by having a break in the case - but mostly, it just strikes him as unreasonably boring when compared to the personally conducted investigation he has going on with Light. 

Also, he really, really does not want to have to bed Yotsuba Corp.

 

\---

 

Everyone is tremendously excited to begin further investigation into the new lead, and L, while more than disposed to enjoy dampening other people's joy when unfounded, can find no fault in their pleasure. Things have been slow for most of the team of late, himself and Light excluded, but even Light seems pleased by the turn of events. L's sure at least part of that is due to immense satisfaction in having caught onto something before L, nevermind that L had barely been looking. It's not as if Light's ego needs anymore pampering, but L has to admit that it was good work, so he lets him enjoy it, if that's what it takes.

Things are going easier with Light lately - less brutal make-outs and punishing release, more lazing in bed, studying Yotsuba headlines and exchanging data and occasionally getting one another off - at the expense of plenty of files that are necessarily disposed of and reprinted after the fact. Light hasn't mentioned anything else about wanting to fuck him, but L can see it waiting in his eyes sometimes, a subdued sort of hunger than struggles its way under L's skin and makes a home there, and L's not sure quite what to do with that yet.

He supposes they'll have to get it over with at some point. Heh, maybe he'll give Light quite a shock and be the one to do the fucking, just throw him on his back one day and have at it. He's not sure that would further his purposes, but it sure does sound appealing.

"Can you hand me Marketing," Light asks, not looking up from his current reading, and he's referring to the file on the department, of course. L hands it off without verbal confirmation, and the feel of Light's fingers trailing over his when he takes it is smooth and warm and tempting.

And maybe last week that would have resulted in them falling off the bed in their haste to get at each other, but not today. Light has gone gentler in the past few days. Since their fight and subsequent reconciliation, he's taken on not just a kinder approach, but a seemingly completely more favorable opinion of L. He seems far less annoyed by his usual antics, even the ones L employs specifically for the purpose of trying to get under Light's skin. And L knows he could fight this easy peace they've settled into, but he's not altogether sure that he wants to.

Conflict breeds progress, he knows, and they need progress, but isn't that what they're having with Yotsuba? L may still be convinced of Light's guilt, but for the time being, it would be remiss to pursue him as Kira when there is a whole group of people just lined up to be investigated. After they deal with Yotsuba - and L's sure it won't take long, given who he plans to bring in to work the job - then he can deal with Light. For now, they can brush fingers and share quiet, knowing looks, and play chess in the early mornings over steaming mugs of tea.

It's been _so long_ since L has had a worthy chess opponent.

The only thing he can possibly think of that may cut into their easy peace is the two phone calls he'd had Watari make that morning, one to Merrie Kenwood, and one to Thierry Morello.

Wedy and Aiber are fantastically adept at their jobs, no doubt about that. That isn't the problem. What presents a rather daunting threat to the situation he and Light have settled into is, well, all the other things they're good at. L's not as worried about Wedy - no, Wedy, at least, has some decorum. Aiber, on the other hand, is awfully… well, he's _handsy_ , is the thing. Which, apart from annoying L terribly most of the time, probably won't be particularly approved of by Light. And it's not as if L can just duck into a room with Aiber for a quick fuck to keep him appeased, not unless he plans on making Light wait on the other side of the door, with the chain slipped through the doorframe.

After the near obsessive research into him, L's sure he knows Light pretty well, and he sincerely doubts he would go along with anything like that.

 

\---

one month later.

\---

 

It's a running battle, it's a fucking whirlwind, fingers scrambling over keys practically faster than the system can keep up as she scrambles through files, deeply encrypted - but a part of breaking and entering in this day and age involves computers, so she's fairly adept at hacking by now. Fairly adept isn't enough for L's system, though, and it's taken her days, dozens of plastic cups full of cheap coffee and twice as many cigarettes to get even this far. She'd call in assistance if she thought she had time, but even living this long is almost a shock to her.

She would have thought the Yagami kid would have wiped the board by now.

She's still alive though, so it doesn't matter why, she just keeps typing, beating in algorithms with every click-click-click of her well-manicured nails. She sucks down some smoke, pours some more coffee, and forty-five minutes later she's in. The hard part over, it doesn't take long for her to track down her name, saved in a file of her own - among those all his contacts, a goldmine of information that nobody wants on the loose, or worse, in the hands of Kira. It's got tons of information on her, from birth to relative present, and invasion of privacy or not - what privacy? - none of it really matters.

What matters is the name. 

_Merrie Kenwood._

She hasn't actually gone by it in years, but she doesn't think that matters to Kira. He's already seen her face, so she leaves the picture, but she expunges every trace of her name from anywhere in the system, replacing it with another alias so that he doesn't know she's been here.

She's prepared to log-out, ready and set to back-track and flush every trace of her brief presence in the system - but another file catches her eye. Thierry Morello, it says. It's a name she knows, and when she double-clicks it, it brings up a face she knows, too. Her finger hovers over the mouse - and really, she ought to be gone, gone, gone by now, out of the rent-by-the-hour motel room and catching wind on her bike - but here she is. It's not as if the world would be so terribly worse off if Aiber were to die, but she thinks she'd sort of miss him anyway, and after a second or two of deliberating over it, she goes through and replaces his name, too. Just in case.

After all, Yagami has no reason to like either of them.

She puffs at another cigarette as she logs out, mentally calculating just how many hundreds of drinks Aiber's going to owe her for this.

 

\---

one month earlier.

\---

 

He looks just like how she remembers him - and funny, he'd been the kid at the time, but if anybody's grown up since then, it's her. He's still all baggy clothes and ridiculous hair and a fork lifted halfway to his mouth, stopped in mid-air once he'd noticed her.

"Hello, Wedy," he says flatly, but his eyes are even wider than usual, like, despite putting in the call for her, he's still shocked by her presence.

Wedy sort of wants to smile, but smirks instead, puffing leisurely from her cigarette holder. "Been a long time, boss," she says, breathing out the smoke in a plume that looks almost comical next to the stark white of the room around them. Like film noir has walked onto a police procedural.

There's a boy next to him who looks too young to be part of the NPA and too pretty to be a cop, anyhow. He's the only other one there, too, apart from Watari's silent presence, which had accommodatingly taken her coat at the door. It's too early for the day to have really begun, and the rest of the supposed team that L's been working with for this case hasn't even arrived yet. Which, in hindsight, is probably the reason he'd asked her here at this hour.

"Hmm, yes," L replies, without really committing to the answer, and does nothing more to greet her. That too, is familiar. "Aiber's late," he comments. The boy quirks a look at him then, at the same time as Wedy lifts an eyebrow.

"You brought on Aiber?" she asks, laughing slightly at the sheer ridiculousness of it. "Why would you go and do a thing like that?"

Aiber's good at his job, true, but then so are plenty of conmen. The only thing that really sets him apart, besides the overhanging scent of cologne and malt liquor that follows him around wherever he pokes his sleazy head in, is his history with L. That's one of the things that sets her apart from all the other thieves of her caliber, too. Good old connections. Just like the political sphere and the professional job market, the criminal underworld is run on them.

Though, L tends to _connect_ a little more literally that most people in the business. Maybe that's one of the reasons he's the best in the business.

"For the case, of course," L responds, dully, like it had been a stupid question that he's wasting time on by even discussing, before segueing directly into, "This is Light Yagami." He nods only slightly in the direction of the kid next to him, but Wedy is used to working on subtleties, and it's not as if he could have been speaking of anyone else in the near-empty room.

She tips her head to the side, taking another drag as she looks him up and down. Funny name. Cute boy. "Hi, there," she says, as he stands to extend a hand. She's surprised that he's not bowing - that's what one does in Japan, after all - and realizes quickly that it's for her benefit, that he's stepping up to the plate on the chance that she's a clueless Westerner who doesn't know her manners, and she's deliberating over letting him know that she's a _fucking professional_ , when she notices it.

It's only when he leans forward, reaching out - and he has a nice, professional handshake, good grip, a child playing all-grown-up - that the light from the overhead fluorescents catches the chain, and the tinny jangling is suddenly obvious in the quiet space the room. There's a chain extended from this Yagami's wrist to L's, keeping them attached like some kind of tame bondage experiment.

"Hello," he says, completely ignoring what could be a very awkward situation, from the look she knows she's giving them. "I'm sorry, I've completely abandoned my manners." He ducks his head politely, smiling apologetically, as if not just on his own behalf, but L's as well. "It's just such a shock to see an unfamiliar face. We don't get many visitors around here."

She brushes off his apology, not bothering to fake a smile back. "Wedy," she says simply, by way of introduction, before turning squarely to L and cocking a thin, blonde eyebrow. "New friend?"

"Light-kun is my chief suspect," L says, expression belying nothing, but admitting as much is as good as outright announcing that they're fucking. L has a habit when it comes to these types of things.

"So that's a yes, then?" she asks, taking the drink that Watari brings her. It's been a long time since she's worked in close quarters with L, but of course Watari remembers how she takes her gin. He's like that. It's maybe too early for alcohol, but it's also too early for chain smoking and smalltalk, and she's doing both of those things now.

"Yes," L says. "That's a yes."

She's not sure, but he thinks she sees him smirking slightly into his cup. Light Yagami, on the other hand - and she's not sure about this - but for just a slim moment, he seems to be glaring at her.

 

\---

tbc.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's probably obvious by now, but I love aiber and wedy in terrible ways. they're actually going to play pretty integral roles in the next few chapters, but i'll elaborate more on that next chapter. I also love misa. like, 80% of everybody hates misa but I really adore her. she's a tragic little thing. she won't be around much for the next few chapters, but she'll definitely have a part to play later. actually, despite this fic being light/l in a big way, there's going to be a lot of other characters involved regardless. what can I say, I love this cast of crazy fuckers.
> 
> I do realize that this chapter was phenomenally, mind-numbingly slow, but I do promise things will pick up. there's just a lot to set up.
> 
> thank you for reading. all reviews are appreciated and you are all wonderful.


	3. hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> something you should all know about this fic, if you haven't realized it already, is that it ridiculous and and a complete experiment. I don't know if it will work out or if I'll end up putting my head through a wall before it's all done, and I assume that a lot of the content (aka, much self-involved wish fulfillment) won't work for anybody besides, well, me. that aside, thank you all for reading and especially for reviewing/favoriting/following/etc. it means an inexpressible amount.

_“There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.”_  
\- F. Scott Fitzgerald, _The Great Gatsby_

 

\---

 

She's attractive, in a western woman sort of way, although she looks like she's missed a few decades, walked in straight out of a '60s spy movie or something. _Wedy_. He doubts that's her real name, is sure L wouldn't let anybody come within a fifty-foot radius of his favorite suspect without an alias or three. If L is consistent in any regard - which is becoming less and less likely - it's this one. He's committed to protecting the unsuspecting public. Either that, or he's keeping Light locked up in this place for his own perverse amusement. Which, actually, when Light thinks about it, is the more believable option.

"Light-kun," L says, voice low and even, and the words don't sound half as baiting as Light truly knows them to be. "Is something wrong?"

L had sent Wedy out onto the balcony to finish her cigarette - _"A terrible habit,"_ he'd said, like all those other bullshit niceties he pretends to believe for the sake of not seeming like a completely unethical lunatic - and it's just the two of them again. L's not fidgeting or acting any stranger than the usual, but he looks slightly off. Nervous, almost. Like the other shoe's about to drop, and he's waiting for it rather impatiently.

Light thinks about answering the question, but figures he's better off cutting around all of the usual word games - not that he doesn't like a good game, but he likes information a fair bit better. 

"She's not a cop, is she?" He says it like he already knows the answer, watching the door Wedy had slipped out of. Other than some of the bedrooms, the building's got no windows, but it's got plenty of doors. Light's not allowed through most of them, though.

"How do you figure?" L drops sugar cubes in his tea, twirling his roller-chair back and forth with nervous energy. 

He's been looking less tired lately. It's not like the bags under his eyes have at all decreased or his skin had really lost its sickly coloring, but there's just been something different the past few days. Last night he'd felt warm, a thing alive and with a pulse, skin pressing close against Light's as they'd set aside their research, distracting themselves with far more engaging pursuits. They haven't fucked yet, which feels ridiculous to Light, but then it hasn't even been all of three weeks - is that pathetic? - so he'll give it a few more days until he just throws L down on the nearest flat surface and has at it.

He doesn't quite look up to it today, though, drooping back into his usual unkempt and underfed appearance with a bonus bout of exhaustion on top, which somehow doesn't serve to make to him any less appealing. Light wonders what L would do if he shoved him down right now, just laid him out on the dull grey carpet and unbuttoned his jeans, stuck a hand down his pants and made him come. He wonders what this Wedy would say if she caught them at it and briefly takes great pleasure in the thought - the only thing a step up from _having L_ would be letting L's little private workforce _know_ that he's being had.

It's just a fantasy, of course, no one can actually find out - other than Watari, he supposes, because Watari sees and knows everything, and it can't be helped at this point - but the taskforce is better off, as they always are, left in the dark.

"Well," Light says, clearing his throat, "her clothes are too nice, for one."

L stabs a strawberry with his fork and shoves the whole thing in his mouth. "But Light-kun himself is quite the sharp dresser, is he not?" he asks around his chewing, and he's playing the idiot-savant facade again, which annoys Light to no end.

Hadn't they just made progress? They've been getting along lately and, despite the fact that L is varying levels of immoral, unethical, and blatantly cruel, Light is starting to grow rather fond of him. They _have_ been making progress.

"I'm not a policeman yet, you know," Light counters, vaguely irritable, but trying not to let it show.

"Ah, yes," L says, "sometimes I forget. You do act so grown-up." He nibbles at the fork, teeth clanging against the metal, and Light grimaces.

And the worst part is, Light _is_ mature for his age. He's lightyears ahead of his peers, and miles more intelligent than most people three times as old as he is, and if Light were less clever - or less used to L - he would take the compliment at face value. But, as it stands, he hears it for biting, flat-toned jab that it is, like L's just poking fun at him, condescending to treat him like an adult, when he's really just a child playing dress up in Daddy's clothes. It cuts deeper than it should and, not for the first time, makes Light wonder what had ever made him think that L was worth trying to get on with?

Probably the way his hips jut, point-sharp and white from the tops of his jeans, or the sounds he makes low in his throat when Light touches him just right. Intelligence aside, those are L's only good qualities.

Light smiles, and it feels more like a polite snarl.

"Does it make you feel better to pretend I'm not still a teenager?" he asks, lowering his voice, and it comes out kindly, like a vague inquiry about work.

And most days - not the last few, but before that - L would take that as the gauntlet being thrown down, and an invitation to one of their typical arguments, scathed and hidden under layers of false civility. He even looks like he's about to snipe something back at Light, a quick and dirty throw-down of wits at breakfast, but just as soon as the sentiment forms on his face, it's gone. Replaced by that familiar exhaustion. 

"Not particularly," L says quietly, "no."

He continues to pick at the strawberries.

Any desire Light had had to quarrel deflates with that, and then he just feels like a bit of an ass. Which is completely unfair and not at all reflective of the situation. But he still feels guilty. L is working hard and Light is supposed to be helping him, not picking fights just for an excuse to prove himself. He feels inexplicably younger than he usually does around L and frowns, shifting to have a sip of his coffee. He doesn't like this, doesn't like caring so much about someone else's feelings. Not just in a general, good-will sort of way, but truly. Like L's exhaustion is making Light himself exhausted, like his happiness will be the only thing to cure them both. It's uncomfortable in its closeness; stifling, almost.

Light wants to touch L's sternum, wants to feel the thin bones underneath the skin. Instead he just looks back at the balcony door and says, "Who is she, L?"

L taps the fork against his desk and looks with him. "A specialist," he says.

Light doesn't like that answer, so he appeases his mind with glimpses of L's long fingers, L's limp hair and sharp nose. He looks intelligent more-so than handsome. L's face couldn't look the way it does without a fiercely clever mind behind it; it's something in the brow, something thick-set in the eyes. In the way that he glares and smiles and comes with barely a twitch of his features. He's too intelligent for expressions.

He's about to respond to L's far from adequate answer when Wedy's lip-smack voice precedes her from the balcony and does it for him.

"Well, don't sugarcoat it for him," she says, heels clicking her back into the room as she tucks a pack of expensive cigarettes into her purse.

"I value your input, Wedy," L says, completely falsely. "Now please go away."

Light would smirk at that if it wouldn't make him look terribly petty.

Wedy's neat, blonde eyebrows raise, but she doesn't look shocked by L's unprofessionalism, which is at least a small sign of experience. 

"I just wanted to tell you that a car has pulled into the underground garage. A nice one," she says, glossy fingernails playing along the doorframe that she leans against, and L looks at her like he's just heard the punchline of a particularly bad joke and is waiting for her to take it back. "There's a little off-the-clock surveillance for you."

She picks up her glass, swirls the melting ice and puts herself in a chair. The words only mean something to Light as far as they mean something to L, and from they way he winces and gives his roller-chair a particularly violent turn, he's guessing that they mean _something_.

The man, when Watari lets him in, is large and blond and handsome, and looks to Light more or less like Wedy with a barrel chest and a cigar in his mouth. He claps Watari, who bares it gracefully, on the back like a dear old friend and shoots a wide, practiced smile at Wedy. "How's my girl?" he asks, and just smiles wider at her response - "I wouldn't know," - and that appears to be enough of a greeting for them. 

He turns to L, moving through the room like a refined bulldozer, but L cuts him off before he can say a word. 

"Light," he says, without looking at anybody in particular, Light included, "this is Aiber. Aiber, this is Light Yagami."

Aiber's eyebrows drift up toward his hairline as his eyes catch on the chain, and real amusement sparks on his face before it locks itself back up behind an affected grin. 

"A pleasure."

His handshake is firm and Light instantly dislikes him. It's the bright eyes, the vague scent of alcohol, the way he motions with his cigar when he speaks. He's not even smoking the cigar. It's not even lit. His cologne is thick and his suit is flashy and he's maybe the campiest thing Light has ever seen in person. And he keeps _looking_ at L, in a way that no one should ever look at L, least of all in a professional setting while he's physically chained to another person.

Light puts on his best smile and greets him cordially. He feels L stiffen next to him, probably because L knows this voice, knows this smile. He knows all the fakest parts of Light, just like he seems to be learning the real ones.

"And what do you do for L, Yagami?" Aiber asks, like he already knows the answer, like there's innuendo wrapped up in there somewhere, and Light's brain is quickly dissecting it, running through the gestures and words and calculated, easy smile.

He sits back down in the chair next to L's, arms crossing casually across his chest, and says, "The same thing you used to, I'd assume," with a lifted brow and a clever twitch to his smirk.

It's plainly obvious - if Light takes a proper stock of the situation, the interactions, the look in Aiber's eye - that L has slept with him. Probably with Wedy, too, from the way she seems to take the comment with little more than a demure sip of her gin.

Aiber, on the other hand, laughs uproariously. It's an obnoxious laugh, too loud for the situation, and Light hopes L gets bored of this comedy routine soon and sends the idiot packing. He's no idea what he could possibly do for the case, and doesn't want to find out what he could do for L. Light wants out of here, back to bed, back to the sheets and L's boney knees digging into his side and his warm, uneven breath ghosting against his face.

"Come now," Aiber says, with a heavy-handed smirk, "you're not a conman, too, are you?"

Wedy clinks the ice around in her glass. "I do believe the boy was talking about the other _thing_ , Aiber," she says.

"Oh?" His face is almost comical when he flicks his eyes over to her, then back to leer at Light and L. "Surely that, of all things, goes without saying?"

"But you love to talk about it, anyway," Wedy says, checking her designer watch, evidently waiting for something. It doesn't take Light long to realize what.

L's teacup hits the desk with a heavy, conversation-stopping clang, his eyes going blank. There's no anger, no simmering displeasure like when Light says something vaguely disparaging about his investigatory techniques - such as they are - and L gets moody, words biting and carelessly cruel. He's just cold.

"Aiber, Wedy," he says, voice low but commanding, enunciating each of their names thoroughly. _"Stop it."_ He doesn't look at either of them in particular, eyes focusing on some far off, hazy point in the back of the room that only he can see, and Light knows the tactic well. "You're here for the Kira case. You will talk about the Kira case, and you will talk about nothing else while under this roof. Outside of this building, you are free to talk about anything but the Kira case. Is that clear?" 

He does look at the both of them then, meeting Aiber's smiling eyes and Wedy's sober sniff and prompting a nod from each of them. It's evident that they've heard this spiel before and don't think all that much of it.

"Compromise my security," L continues, "or any part of my investigation, and you will find yourselves both out of a job, and back in a cell." Watari appears then, out of nowhere, with some kind of enormous, gut-rotting desert and L's eyes switch straight over to that. "Now," he says, "who wants parfait?"

Predictably, no one wants parfait.

Less predictably, and not necessarily something Light would admit outright, listening to L tell the two of them off in that authoritative, no-nonsense tone has turned him on a bit. He wonders if L would mind terribly being dragged off for another "bathroom break," just a quick interlude to the morning, and then back to business. But then his mind backtracks over what L had actually said, and another thing clicks into place.

"You're criminals," he says.

Light can feel his jaw locking, his skin itching, and he doesn't know whether he should be shocked or not that L has brought this disreputable element into the investigation. Probably not. Nothing L does should ever surprise him, and if it ever does, Light should know that he's the one who's not playing right, because L isn't above - or below - anything. Sex with a suspect? Apparently that's tame for him, and his usual speed is more along the lines of _sex with everyone._

Light wants to curl his lip at Aiber and Wedy, but resolves to be the bigger person about this, for the sake of the case if nothing else. L, on the other hand, appears to have no such moral stipulations.

"Feeling murderous?" he asks Light, immediately switching gears to lean in almost humorously close.

"Depends if you keep talking," Light shoots back, pulling out his long-suffering sigh and put-upon expression.

L's mouth quirks almost imperceptibly. His breath is cool from the parfait and he's chewing on a cherry stem and Light still can't decide whether it will be worth it to pin him down and fuck him on one of the headquarters desks. They have too many desks, Light thinks, too much space. It's wasteful and extravagant, another of L's laundry list of sins, and he can think of no better purpose better suited than the two of them, close and warm, with L's breath going weak, body pliant.

God, Light thinks about this way too much. It would be unhealthy if he hadn't already resolutely decided that it's definitely not. Light is an extremely healthy young man, and this kind of thing is normal for his age group. Sometimes Light will think of himself as more of an age group than he does as a human being, but it's been a long time since then. L's given him more of an identity than he's ever had before, just by standing by and accusing him constantly of crimes, by kissing him the way he does. Light can't decide whether he ought to thank him or hate him for it.

Aiber shoots a look at them and his smile, if possible, grows by a couple of watts. " _You're_ supposed to be Kira?"

Light can hear the condescension in the question. _You? A child, a boy, a student?_ Light doesn't know why, but it instills him with a sudden feeling of harsh, unquenchable pride. _Yes_ , a part of him thinks, _me_. After the thought passes through, he pauses, but then it's gone, and all he's left with is to reassure himself that the only gratification he'd gotten from the sentiment was the fact that L deems him competent enough to suspect him of a crime of such magnitude. He's not sure he's ever thought of it like that before, but there it is. The other investigators had doubted that a student could be responsible for Kira's crimes - and he doesn't know how he knows that, assumes his father must have mentioned it at some point - but L hadn't. L never would.

It's preposterous, of course. Even if Light is intellectually capable of being Kira, he's not morally so, and that's where L has it wrong. L's so close to being right, but he's just so, so wrong.

Light returns Aiber's condescending look with a polite tilt of his head.

" _'Supposed to'_ being the key phrase," he says, flat-out ignoring any insult Aiber might have intended, "and only in the world according to L."

"And what a beautiful world to live in," Aiber shoots back.

Light continues to disapprove of him with vehemence.

"Funny," Wedy says, and she's not looking at either of them, but dodging her glance lazily between her glass, her fingernails, and L, "but if you work with him long enough, you get to realize that the reputation isn't just talk. He really is always right." Her lipstick smacks as she speaks and Light's starting to vaguely hate her, too. "About these things, at least."

Everyone knows that, though. L is right about everything, L knows all, L is great and infallible. Light is the only one who knows better.

Maybe Wedy really hasn't fucked him, because if she has, she would have seen him as he truly is, small and imprecise and weak, riddled with ruinous humanity. Or maybe, just possibly, Light is the only one allowed that glimpse, the only one deemed important enough to get that close. Yes, that feels correct, that's surely the only explanation. Sex is sex, and people all over the world are having it, but Light is different, and so is L. They don't drag each other low with those grasping hands, they hold tight and they grip hard and they bite deep, and they haven't even _fucked_ yet. They've barely gotten started, and already they're so above it. They're just so above everything.

Obviously, though, he can't say that to Wedy, so he gives her an expression of politeness and acute embarrassment, and says, "Then you see how that makes my position quite awkward."

Aiber snorts, and it's good-humored enough for Light not to trust it. 

"I'll bet."

The innuendo really is getting crass, and Light barely restrains an eye-roll. L does it for him, like they're locked into the same thought process, scoffing as he pours himself another cup of tea.

"I've missed your brand of humor, Aiber," he says.

"Really?" Aiber's eyes light up in a leer.

L starts dropping in sugar cubes, and when they reach double-digits, Light stops counting. "No," he returns briskly. He tastes his tea, and then adds a few more. Wedy's glass clinks through the wide office, and they can hear Matsuda talking excitedly to someone in the outside hall, voice getting ever closer.

 

\---

 

"They're very charming," is the first thing Light says when they're alone, back in the bedroom while everyone else is having lunch.

It's obvious to L who he's talking about. He's had the same fake smile glued to his face since this morning, and it's halfway between hilarious and sickening the way everyone so far has bought it.

"You hate them," L says immediately, without turning around. He doesn't need to look at him to know the expression has dropped off of Light's face, especially when he collapses into one of the chairs like the melodramatic farce that he is and huffs a laugh, like it's a joke between the two of them.

"Tell me you don't," he shoots back, and he has as much of a point as he doesn't, because once upon a long time ago - when L was just as young as Light, though not nearly so immature - he had hated Aiber and Wedy.

They'd been unprofessional, they'd laughed at his demands for respect, at his interrogations, at the thought that this boy was the great and powerful L. They'd both had eager hands when he'd dragged them into bed, though, and at the time, that had arguably been the worst part. Wedy and her manicured nails and her gin and the way she liked to show off her cynicism like a badge of honor. Aiber with his rentboys and his loud laughter and warm palms. _"That's a boy,"_ he'd said, the first time L had kissed him. Wedy had just smirked and told him he was too young for her, and then preceded to fuck him, anyway.

He shrugs, though, because he's not keen to tell any of that to Light, and wouldn't know how to explain the eventual affinity he'd gained for each of them, even if he did. 

"They have their uses," is all he says, not intending the statement to be suggestive, but allowing for it anyway. Light will come to his own conclusions, no matter what's said.

Light snorts. "I'm sure they do."

There's a pause, and then the inevitable comes.

"What is this," Light asks, "a thing with you?" He stands up, seemingly bored of his dramatic collapse and now committed to rounding on L. "Did you investigate them? Were they your cases, your suspects?" He says the word like an accusation, even though Light is the one under suspicion. But then, he's always had the ability to make it feel like the other way around.

Sometimes, in the dead, long night while Light sleeps and L stares at the ceiling, he can't remember if he had chained himself to Light or if it was the other way around. He feels locked up, like there's a leash around him. Like Light had slipped in when he wasn't looking and L's not sure how to get him out.

He stiffens when Light's fingers meet his back, trailing up the arch of his spine with a cruel sort of delicacy. L doesn't answer any of his questions. Light's a smart boy. He doesn't need him to.

"What is wrong with you?" he asks, in that quiet tone that he like so much. That sympathetic, lover-boy voice that goes up an octave. It shouldn't be so easy, but it is, to tell when Light is lying. "I'm not just being insulting, I'm actually asking. Has that been the idea from the start, to fuck the truth out of me?"

L stands there, Light's hand splayed across his back, and doesn't know what to say to that. Sex has been an integral part of his investigatory tactics for a long time. He was 17 the first time he dragged a suspect into bed. He's still not sure whether Watari had watched on the security cameras or not, but he'd known after the fact. He'd just nodded his usual approving nod and told L that he was doing good work. Anything for justice.

"I suppose I'm meant to be above that sort of thing, aren't I?" he asks the crisp white expanse of the bed. The sheets have been made, because Light is anal about these sorts of things.

He's expecting it, but the warm press of lips on the back of his neck still makes him twitch with the shock of the touch.

They've been getting closer by the day, and it's come to a point that if they're not truly friends, they might as well let themselves believe they are. Friendship has nothing to do with the way Light's touching him - running his clever hands down L's sides, along his ribs; mouth curving up to press against his ear, the underside of his jaw - but L thinks of it anyway. He thinks of the several hours of sleep he's gotten this week, and waking up to Light looking at him in a way Light doesn't look at anyone.

Light is diluted, though, at least currently. He's not himself. The thought is an ache as much as it is a relief. Soon this will all go away.

"Come on, then," Light whispers in his ear, "I might as well get my money's worth." It might be romantic if it weren't so horribly crass.

"This isn't very upstanding of you, Light-kun," L says, leaning back into the touch.

They touch one another too much and it's ridiculous. L hates being touched - at least in theory - but his hips press back as Light's press forward, and he's just decided to go ahead with this, to risk the possibilities of Aiber's suggestive comments and Wedy's raised eyebrows - for the sake of the investigation, of course - when Light tugs him around by the shoulders, spinning him so that they can kiss properly.

It's a gutting, gasping press, like they've lost something inside one another and are set on using their tongues to get it out - which is a comparison as ill-favored as it is true. They really have no good reason, beyond simple hormones, to be this ravenous, but after hazy days and quiet comfort, that sizzle and burn seems essential. Maybe Wedy and Aiber were a necessary wake-up call, a taste of the realities that L has been ignoring in favor of Light's hands and eyelashes and thighs, and the rest of him, too. L tells himself that it's all part of the plan, but as good of a liar as he is, he's not good enough to fool himself.

Light's mouth tastes like unsweetened tea and his fingers dig into L's scalp as they kiss and it's all quite terrible, really.

"They don't know you," he says against L's lips. "They don't know a thing about you."

It's probably jealousy, but it doesn't sound like it. Light's desperation, the sort he's showing now, is born out of his own floundering reality more than it is outside forces. L should know, he works hard enough trying to loosen the infrastructure of Light's mind. He wonders if that's Kira creeping in the back door, or if Kira's been at the helm all along.

"The thing is, Light-kun," he shoots back, tugging himself out of Light's grip, "neither do you."

"Tell me something, then," Light demands. As if it's owed to him. As if all of L's past and history, his innermost thoughts, should be up for grabs by default.

"There isn't really anything to tell," L says, turning away.

Light scoffs, wiping at his lips. "You're lying. You're always lying."

"Just one more way in which we're devastatingly similar," L says. He slumps into the chair that Light had vacated and the chain is tugged taut between them. "It's terrible, really. We might be good together, if you hadn't killed thousands of people. But then, if you were just the decent, upstanding young man that you pretend to be, we never would have met." He tilts his head to the side, lolling there like none of it means a thing.

Light pinches the bridge of his nose, fighting off the aggravation.

"Stop it. Let's not have this argument again, okay? I just - "

"Want sex?" L asks, but it's not really a question, and not really the answer, either. It goes without saying. Light wants to fuck him and L ought to fuck him, because that's how he does his best investigations, but there's a sort of invented roadblock between where they are now and where sex will put them.

L never goes into investigations intending to fuck his suspects, but it's 60/40 in favor of it ending up that way anyway, and he's learned to anticipate his own on-the-fly strategies. It becomes less about facts and data and crime scenes and more about bodies and skin and quiet words. The difference here is that most of his suspects don't _know_ that they're his suspects, don't know that he's L, and they don't spend half as much time with him as Light has. Kira is a different case, a different animal altogether, and leaving him alone for a moment is not an option.

Wedy and Aiber really don't know him as well as Light does, which only really bothers him in so far as it would puff up Light's ego tremendously if he were to find out, and he really doesn't need any more of that.

L is used to giving things away to his cases. _We all make sacrifices for justice_ , Watari has said to him once when he was a child, and even at that age he'd taken it to heart. He thinks there must have been more of him, once upon a time, but the hands and the mouths have picked him apart, every case taking its own tiny piece, and he'd let them be taken. For _justice_. And because, at the time, he hadn't mattered to himself at all in the grand scheme.

Looking back on it, he just feels diminished, like he'd want the lost parts back if could figure out what to do with them.

"Yes," Light says. Yes, he wants sex. He is a teenage boy and he is a construction of a person, but a person nonetheless, and his hormones make far more sense to him than L's half-assed identity crisis.

"Not now, Light," L says.

Maybe he'll keep saying that until he catches Light out. More likely, he won't be able to catch him without the sex, without that one deep look inside.

Light rolls his eyes, looks like he'd expected as much, but doesn't push the issue. They play Go instead, and have lunch, and L tells him about a case in Hong Kong where a woman killed eleven different men with the same pair of high-heeled shoes, and Light listens to him, riveted.

 

\---

 

In the small, minimalist kitchen, on the breakfast table, with L's hands pinned above his head and Light spread out on top of him, pressing down with a gentle, burning friction as he thrusts shallowly. L's hips writhe beneath him, shoving up helplessly, and Light takes pity and fucks him harder.

In the shower, both of them cramped together in the narrow space - and why do they still bathe separately; it's ridiculous, if Light truly thinks about it - slick with soap and sliding wet against water-warm skin, L gasping and pulling at his hair, desperate for it.

In the main room, in the dead of night, locked together on the floor, sweat cooling between them from the air-conditioning vents low on the wall beside them, the hum of the monitors playing a steady, lulling background noise, almost a sort of mood music - because what's more L than computers and machines, inhumanity so human in its frailty - and Light would pin him, and Light would fuck him, and it would be glorious, the end to all problems and the road to all solutions, and L's voice would break and his long, white fingers would curl into Light's shoulders and -

The stack of files lands dully on the desk in front of him, and Light can barely restrain himself from the full-on glare he'd like to level at Mogi. Next to him, L smirks into his tea, and Light has a place to reroute his annoyance.

He narrows his eyes as he smiles politely, the sneer evident as nothing more than a ghost of sentiment that he's sure L can see.

L doesn't say as much, of course, just continues to suck on today's obscenity and asks, "Distracted, Light-kun?"

"Just thinking about the case, Ryuzaki," he says, so pleasant it's like razor burn, tight with an uncomfortable heat that disguises itself so easily under the cordial tilt of his head.

If the game had been on pause before, the arrival of Aiber and Wedy had shifted everything into an intensive, competitive gear, and it's been all they can do for the past few weeks to keep their hands off of each other, to keep their mouths closed against the clever, barbed things they want to say.

It's unhealthy, perhaps, and not something Light would dream of participating in without provocation, but it still makes something flush-warm shift low in his stomach, makes everything quick and fanciful, almost like he really is Kira, like he really is L's sworn enemy. It's the same as the fantasies he indulges during their work hours - filthy, but acceptable in their obscenity because he clearly recognizes them as such. There's a difference between thinking, _what if?_ and actually killing thousands of people, same as there is between thinking, constantly and with commendable variety, about fucking L, and actually doing so.

They still haven't gotten down to it, although it's not all due to L's ornery pretenses at modesty, so much as their two newest house guests. Apparently, the only things Aiber likes more than pretending to smoke his cigar and talking about his exploits as a conman are making very thinly-veiled sexual innuendos in front of the task force and playing with L's hair. It's extremely unsettling. They'll be at the computer and L will be talking and Aiber will just lean over his shoulder, speaking very close to his ear and twining his fingers into the short strands at the base of his neck, like petting a dog or something.

And L, even though it's obvious that he notices, never once stops him, or makes any comment to the effect of, _"Get the fuck off of me, you impudent log,"_ as Light thinks he really should.

"Forgive me for saying so," L says, eyeing him in a way that might be sly if L would commit to actually making an expression, "but, considering that you are the case, that seems uncharacteristically self-absorbed."

And when he says _uncharacteristically_ it's obvious from the cadence of his voice that what he means is the exact opposite. Then he licks some frosting from his fingers, and it's vile. So vile that Light wants nothing more for everyone else on planet Earth to disappear so that no one else ever has to see how vile L can be.

Also, so that they can finally fuck in peace.

"That man is a kleptomaniac," Aiber says, appearing from somewhere in a puff of bitter smoke to stand behind L and Light, hands crossed casually across his chest as he stares up at the screen. "And that one has had sex with his cousin," he adds, nodding to a different Yotsuba member.

He's been doing this sort of thing for most of the past week, poking his shiny, blond head in just long enough to deliver some useless bit of information that they either already know or don't care about, before ducking out again to go lounge somewhere and drink bourbon. Light doesn't understand why L doesn't fire him immediately, but he hasn't said a thing, because that's not the way the game's played.

So, as much as he wants to call bullshit at this latest declaration - because, _honestly_ \- he turns his smile from L, letting it go slightly more forced, and says, "And how did you come to those very relevant conclusions, Aiber-san?" in the least combative voice he can manage.

The side of Aiber's mouth jerks up, and he uncrosses his arms, laying his large palms on the desk beside Light and leaning over to say, "I'm a conman," like it ought to explain everything. Light raises an eyebrow expectantly, and Aiber does something that looks suspiciously like an eye-roll. "I read people well," he elaborates, straightening up. "It's part of the job."

Light's expression is exceedingly pleasant when he says, "I was under the impression the job of a conman was to make things up. To lie. About everything." He shrugs, unconcernedly, all dimples and eyelashes and everything that everyone always admires about him, coiled in a taunt just clever enough to avoid being obvious in its goading. "When you think about it," he tells Aiber, idly, "it's quite a simple profession, really."

"Only if lying comes easy to you," L says, leaning his unkempt head over into Light's very personal space, muffling the words around his spoon, and Light might even enjoy the jab - in some twisted way that he's sure he'd learned from L - but for the way it obstructs the pleasure he knows he would have gotten in watching Aiber flounder to come up with a suitable reply.

Light gives a quiet laugh.

"I'm sure I don't know anyone like that," he says, eyeing L, awful hypocrite that he is.

L pulls the spoon from his lips with a wet pop and Light thinks of his hands in L's hair, of the sharp jut of his chin digging into Light's thigh.

"Light-kun," he says, eyes wide and dumb and almost charming, in an inscrutable, foul sort of way, "I do believe you're lying to me."

"Do you?" Light simpers back.

They're really quite lovely sometimes. If L wasn't a near-borderline personality obsessed with arresting him, Light might suggest they do something drastic, like live happily ever after.

"Cute," Aiber says, but he looks annoyed, and Light feels smug for more than a few reasons.

"Yes, Light is very charming," L mumbles. "You two should start a club."

Light doesn't much like what L's implying there, but Aiber just hitches an eyebrow before wandering off. Light, following L's lead, glances back to the screen. The Yotsuba group have moved on from the Kira business, and are currently arguing about stocks, which L doesn't seem impressed by in the least. Light likes stocks, and even he finds it fairly dull. Aizawa is slumped a few seats away, looking as if he's putting serious consideration into hanging himself with his tie. Light only hopes he has the good sense to do it after he's filed today's research report.

Light glances at the smaller security screens, watching Aiber move from the hallway into his private rooms and not sure whether to spend a few minutes feeling ardently superior or just go back to work. L is watching him watch, of course, and the knowledge tingles something sharp and fluttery under his skin.

"You despise him," L says, offhandedly, head tilted like when he's play-acting.

"Of course not," Light says, by default, but hopes it's obvious from his tone of voice that what he really means is, _yes, I do_. "But at least Wedy actually does her job," he adds. 

And she doesn't hang around half as much, a fact that gains her a considerable amount of favor with Light. As a rule, the less he has to see of people, the more he likes them.

"Aiber will do his, when he's needed," L says, but he's distant. Light hates whatever he's thinking about then for no reason other than that he doesn't know what it is.

"Can't you keep him somewhere else until then?" he asks, making it sound like more of a joke than it is. "A cell, maybe? Or a kennel."

"Manners, Light-kun," L says, berating him so fondly that Light thinks he actual sees the edge of a smile in his eyes.

And, this isn't like their old games, not really. They're still playing, but not very determinedly, and not necessarily against one another. If anything, it's a tease, flirting with disaster, but not actually looking for it. Light thinks that it must be, in part, because of Matsuda. Matsuda who, as usual, blundered things so effectively that he'd actually had to fake his own death. Aiber had made himself useful for once by lying around on the ground, Misa had actually conjured up some legitimate acting skills to put to use, and by some confluence of events that had involved L and Light in paramedic uniforms - and subsequent blow jobs, still in uniform, after the fact - everyone had managed to stay alive and the taskforce had ended up with a whole network of Wedy's surveillance cameras in the Yotsuba meeting room.

Even though Light's sure L still hasn't dropped his suspicions, or even set them aside, the new leads have been keeping them busy enough not to get into spats over Light's likelihood of being Kira, resulting in something like a marginally competitive but mutually respectful truce between them. It would be virtually ideal if Aiber weren't skulking around in the picture.

So, maybe last week he would have said something politely distant in response to L's baiting, setting it aside, being the bigger person, but it's been all fun and games between them lately, so he just hitches the side of his mouth and says, "Bite me, L," in a low, clever tone that he means to shoot up L's spine and under the seams of his clothes, the way words sometimes do with them.

"Ryuzaki," L corrects, as usual, but it's not particularly reproving, and if his mouth would curve up just a little and his eyes would light a little brighter, he could almost be grinning

"Ryuzaki," Light repeats. He wants to kiss him. The task force is all around them and Light's father is across the room, brow stern as he shuffles through files, and he'll never do it, not really, but he wants to kiss him.

"Ryuzaki." Watari's voice crackles civilly over the intercom. "There's a call on your secondary line."

L's brow, or what Light can see of it through the thick tangle of his hair, creases slightly, and he looks vaguely annoyed. 

"Not now, Watari," he answers back into the microphone. All of the calls regarding the Kira case go to the primary line, so Light assumes, as L probably does, that it's not particularly important. Maybe L should answer, anyway, maybe they both have things to be doing, but there's a lightness between them just then, something foreign and new and bright, and it feels like enough to just sit there, shooting clever sideways glances at each other as another day of slow progress passes them by.

 

\---

 

Light's in the shower when Aiber comes in. He's wearing a salmon pink suit and it should look terrible, but it doesn't. In the same way that all of Aiber's awful lines and over-the-top acting should never work on anyone, but he still manages to con them out of billions without lifting much more than a finger. It's something in the eyes, in the genuine jag of his smile. L had spent months trying to pin-point it down exactly, back when Aiber had still been his case, and had never really come out one hundred percent certain. It hadn't mattered, after the fact. L had solved the case and Aiber had been behind his bars, a weapon ripe for further use.

L glances up from where he's hunched on the counter, not letting a thing show on his face. He doesn't need to ask why Aiber's here, never has, so he just quirks his eyebrows and says, "Lost?"

Aiber smirks his usual smirk, and L remembers why he had been one of the easier cases. He's clever, but easy to engage with and L had dived right in as soon as he'd seen him, had known he was behind it in that way he often does, and hadn't hesitated to drag him to justice by the roots of his blond hair. Aiber had never seemed to hold that against him, and doesn't now.

His fingers are pleasantly warm when they slide along L's jaw, shutting his laptop and pushing it aside, and he leans in close to press his stubbled cheek to L's smooth one, breath whispering soft against his lips before they push forward to meet L's. He tastes sharply of alcohol and it makes L sick with familiar disgust, because it's always been disgusting with Aiber. He's got terrible ways of twisting things up so it always feels sleazier and funnier and dirtier with him than it maybe really is. The hand that slide's down L's chest to cup him roughly through his jeans falls neatly in line with all of L's memories, of all the other times they've done this, and it hurts quietly like nostalgic things do.

L's been expecting this from the start, and isn't overly interested in fighting it, in shoving him back and insisting that he's not interested, because in all honesty, he'd probably still rather fuck Aiber than Light. The devil you know, and all that.

He kisses back only tentatively, but Aiber doesn't need it to be anything more, grabbing his face with one hand and groping him roughly with the other. It still feels safer than Light's soft hands and kind smile ever have, because that smile isn't really kind, it's just playing kind, and Aiber may be a professional liar, but it's just his job. He doesn't take it home with him, doesn't sleep with false things ready on his tongue. He drags L so close he thinks he might fall off the counter, but Light is still showering, still hasn't noticed a thing, and maybe L _can_ fall and that will be okay.

Aiber shoves him back against the mirror, but not hard, not looking to bruise, just putting enough room between them to speak.

He nods at the handcuff around L's wrist. "Lose the kid," he says.

He's so warm and he smells cheap, is cheap, and L is almost amused to remember how terrified he'd been of him once. He shakes his head and says, "You've really got to stop being in love with me, Aiber."

Aiber laughs, expectedly. He laughs at everything. "Don't be so egotistical," he says. "It's unattractive." He steps back a little then, taking his hand off of L's face, but not letting up on his crotch. His eyes are so bright. L had almost forgotten. "You look like shit, actually."

"You're shocked?" L asks. Maybe he should be uncomfortable, but he isn't. Aiber's liquor breath is familiar, same as his grabby hands and overbearing laugh and the way he tells stories, speaking very slowly and with a quiet smile. He takes his coffee with two sugars and he doesn't like tea. He has terrible taste in music.

"Last time I saw you, you looked better," Aiber says, shrugging.

"That was Coil."

"Coil is you."

"Semantics."

The original Eraldo Coil had actually been very handsome. L hadn't fucked him, but he had sucked off Denueve - who had been older and with much worse hair - during the detective wars, and had nearly choked on his cock at the time, but it had helped him get the code, so it had been worth it. 

When L had actually worked Aiber's case, he'd done so as L, but subsequently it had been much more usual for him to call in Aiber's particular brand of expertise for Coil's cases. 

"It was so fucking hot down in Argentina," Aiber breathes against his neck, fingers tapping an off-tempo beat onto his thigh, "that you didn't wear your shirt half the time, and you were always sucking down one of those girly fruit drinks." He tongues L's ear. "You looked good."

Argentina had been a particularly difficult case. A string of political murders with heavy religious symbolism and a lot of arterial spray. L had bought a villa and lived in it for three months with no more furniture than a few futons. He had stuck case photos all over the walls and Watari had had to repaint before they moved out to get rid of his scrawling sharpie notes on every available surface. He'd sent Aiber out to schmooze politicians, but he'd always shown up at the villa on his off hours, drinking heavily and letting L bounce his unending, contradicting streams of thought off of him, and when the thoughts had started coming too quickly for his mouth, and his hands had shaken from too much caffeine, Aiber had lain him down on one of the futons and fucked him calm and quiet again.

That had been two years ago, and then the case had wrapped up and they hadn't spoken to each other again until L had had Watari call him in two weeks ago.

That's how it is with him, usually. L has sex the way other people go bowling, casually and only when he can think of nothing else to do, and then he'll let months or years pass in-between because it fits nowhere into his daily life. It's been pointed out to him - by several people and in many different and creative ways - that this is in no way healthy, that fucking just to pull back the skin and see the gooey insides is really not a good reason to fuck. But L does not do things because they are good or kind or reasonable, he does them because _this is what he does_.

He's justice, maybe. Or maybe not. It doesn't matter terribly either way.

He looks at Light's pretty, pretty outline through the shower curtain, assumes he can't hear them because he'd be out here already if he could, dripping wet and childishly possessive, because even though he thinks that he understands L, he doesn't. Doesn't even have enough information to form a proper hypothesis, even with that sparkling mind of his.

He looks back to Aiber, nodding his head towards the shower. "I'm not going to fuck you," he says, lowly. "I have to fuck him."

"You can't do both?" Aiber asks with a smirk, but of course he knows the answer.

The thing about Aiber is that he actually knows a lot about L, factually, but he's not half as clever as Light, and not a quarter so much as L, and he doesn't know what to properly do with the information. L likes Aiber - sometimes, but not all of the time - because he's smart enough to smile smug, like he knows things, but not smart enough to actually know anything.

"I don't have time for you, Aiber," he says, but he doesn't push him away.

Aiber rolls his eyes, huffing long-sufferingly and letting his hand curve lazily around L's hip. "You're no fun anymore," he says. "Wedy's the same. She nearly broke my wrist yesterday."

"You shouldn't have grabbed her there," L says, and if he were the type to smile, he might do it now.

There's something like boyish nostalgia for him mixed in with Aiber and Wedy, and even watching her twist his arm around his back after he'd groped her had inspired a certain amount of fondness in L. He feels for them what the average person might feel for the neighborhood children they'd grown up with, maybe because the children he'd actually grown up with had been brutally psychopathic from their infancy.

"She liked it," Aiber says, waving it off, and maybe it's true. Wedy only breaks bones if she's really fond of you. Or if someone - usually L - is paying her to.

Aiber's hand runs up along his hip, coasting up the sharp indentation right below his ribs. There's a pressure point somewhere there and if Aiber knew how he could jab his thumb and cause L an unimaginable, gut-wrenching pain in in his lower abdomen. He's felt it before, more than a few times. From his youth he'd been trained to withstand almost any form of torture, from the physical to the psychological and all intermediate practices, and if Aiber dug his thumb in now at _just_ the right angle it would hurt like hell, but L's relatively certain he could suffer it without making a single sound of distress. The thought coasts somewhere in him, and even though he's in virtually no danger, it's something of a comfort.

Aiber's palms are just sloping up the concave of his back when the shower curtain slides aside. 

Light is standing there, Light is naked, and Light does not look pleased. Light rarely looks pleased, of course, unless he's just come or sometimes when he's perceived some sort of victory over L. He smiles constantly, a pleasant drudge of the face, but L's quite certain he's rarely, if ever, seen him look _happy_.

"Am I interrupting something?" he asks, in that cool, clipped voice that he usually reserves for L alone. His eyes are locked on Aiber's hand up L's shirt, nostrils flared and looking vaguely disgusted. L rather hopes he is.

"Hey," Aiber smarms, eyeing Light up and down, because he is naked and dripping and beautiful. "Looking sharp, Kira."

Light's face twists with tight politeness as he pulls a towel off the rack to wipe himself down, purposefully letting the material fall haphazardly, covering nothing up. It's classic posturing, displaying his lack of bodily shame like a badge of honor. L thinks it's almost cute in its infantilism. 

"If you don't mind," Light says, wrapping the towel around his waist, "I'd rather you didn't call me that." There's no denial, no sharp defenses, as if he feels no need to dignify Aiber's words by getting offended. 

Water droplets fall from his hair and skate down his chest, and L watches them. Light is so good-looking that sometimes he doesn't seem real. Sometimes, in the early days - before they had truly met and L was still working the case off of surveillance and suspect profiles - he'd been sure that he wasn't. That Light Yagami was a person he'd created in his head, because he'd wanted a perfect criminal.

It seems very silly and distant now. Light is not perfect, and not even just because of the mass murder. He is childish and moody and self-absorbed, everything that L is, but in a neat suit and pretty skin. He is far from perfect. He is ugly, in his way. 

"I need to get dressed," he says, walking past them without glancing at Aiber, and pulling L after him like a dog on a leash. "Come on, L."

L goes, giving Aiber a shrug, because he'd more or less signed up to be this dog. He is Light's right now, in the same way that he had been Aiber's or Wedy's or the woman in Hong Kong's and the man in Tulsa's. It's just until the job is done, until case his closed, and then he will go back to being his own, alone and quiet and safe again, if only for a little while.

 

\---

 

Light wants to hit him, wants to pin him to something solid and tear him apart and make him hurt and cower and beg, because _Aiber is not allowed to touch him that way_. It seems immoral, like there should be a law somewhere forbidding anyone from putting their hand up L's shirt, unless they pass a set of standardized tests in order to measure their qualifications. Maybe then, if they're brilliant, if they're good enough the way that Light is better than enough, maybe then they can be near him. But only then, and they'd have to pay taxes for it, too.

It's unreasonable, he knows it's unreasonable, he's not completely out of his mind, after all. A day ago, or an hour even, he would have looked down on himself for feeling this way.

As soon as Aiber and Wedy arrived and made their history with L obvious, Light had absorbed the knowledge that L had fucked them - that L goes around fucking _everyone_ \- the way he'd take any new information. It's just a fact, a personality quirk, further evidence of L's striking lack of morality, and that had been the end of it, because Light isn't petty enough for jealousy. Light has never been jealous of anyone in his life and he sees no reason why he should be, with the way he looks, the way he is, the way that everyone treats him the way you would treat some supernatural being who's come down from heaven to delight you with its presence.

L has never looked at him like that and Light has a very graphic fantasy of strangling him with one of his dress shirts as he slams the door of the closet shut behind them. L, unfazed, slumps against a rack of blazers. 

"You're dripping on the slacks, Light-kun," he says, finger plucking at his lip, eyes wide and dull.

Light hates him so much right then it burns through him like a fever and he gets a sickening satisfaction from yanking the chain forward to make L stumble into him.

Light is still completely naked and L is fully clothed, but that doesn't really seem like an issue at this point. The towel drops from his waist and the water still clinging to his hair lands in thick droplets between them, soaking tiny spots into L's shirt, and it physically hurts when he kisses him, but Light doesn't care.

"You're disgusting," he says into L's hair, breath already ragged and cock hardening and pressed into the crotch of L's jeans. He speaks against a patch of skin between L's ear and jaw, lips teasing over it with reckless severity. His palm slides down L's back with bruising pressure, pressing so close they might as well be sharing the same space. "Is there anyone you'd say no to?" he grits into L's ear, his other hand snaking down to grab him roughly.

L's face stays blank, but he goes still in Light's grip just before something like a grin splits his eyes, though his mouth doesn't move. "You're jealous," he says softly, being almost gentle.

"Shut-up," Light bites back, hips pressing tight and close and merciless, demanding L's immediate white flag of surrender. And L will give it to him, L will give him anything because that is the game, because for some reason he's convinced himself that offering himself up like a sacrifice to someone he believes is Kira is a good idea. Because he is ridiculous and disgusting and wrong, wrong, wrong, and _Light is going to kill him someday._

His hips snap forward and his tongue shoves against L's and he wants to get as close as he can, crawl under the skin and live there. The material of L's jeans is rough against his length and he can't seem to get enough friction, even when he shoves L into one of the clothing racks, pushing in between the clean white shirts and identical pairs of jeans. It smells like cotton and detergent and his cock throbs and his head rolls and L lets himself be pushed and pressed and maneuvered into whatever state Light likes, clothed legs spread and head leant back against the wall. He's so calm he could be dead, should be dead and Light will make him, Light will _kill him_.

He comes pathetically quickly with that thought chasing through his head, and he doesn't understand it and he doesn't like it, except for the fact that something in him really, really likes it.

"You're disgusting," he whispers again, just so L understands.

L who is holding him up and stroking his hair and only slightly hard in the jeans that Light has just spilled all over. He feels small and sick and horrified with himself, and he flashes back to that image from early on, that image that burned itself into him like a brand so that it's hard for him to blink some days without seeing it on the backs of his eyelids. L on his back and hurting and begging and completely at Light's mercy. It should make him sick instead of dizzy with arousal, but it usually does a bit of both.

Light stumbles back and L stares at him like he's something curious and strange that he would like to put in a box and study. Light still kind of wants to hit him. He looks down at himself, disheveled and shiny with water and sweat, looks over at L, clothes stained with come, and can't help curling his lip.

"I need another shower," he says.

They take it together and it's the first time they've ever done it like this, for some reason. Light decides that he doesn't like it, because L keeps looking at him and petting his hair and touching his skin with kind hands, and it's so frustrating and patronizing that it's not long before Light's pressing him face-first to the tile wall and jerking him off like there's some unavenged mortal feud between his hand and L's dick.

They're late for that morning's taskforce meeting and Aiber just smirks and Wedy clinks the ice in her glass and L makes some half-scathing comment in a clueless voice about Light's beauty care regiment and avoids answering several phone calls. Light fantasizes graphically about burning the entire building to the ground while vehemently insisting to himself that he isn't.

He gets no work done.

 

\---

 

three weeks later.

 

\---

 

One of the first things that strikes Light when he gets his memories back is this: Despite the past few months, the urge to kill L has not gone away.

The other things that strike Light are these: L has beautiful hands. L has beautiful fingers and eyelids and vertebrae and shoulders and ankles and teeth. L is beautiful, somehow. L is his favorite person out of all the people he has ever met in his life. L had not lied about the snowstorm and Light had secretly known it all along. L should be tested for STDs. L should pose for figure drawing classes. L is a terrible person. L has beautiful hips. When Light kills L, it is not going to be with the Death Note.

 

\---

tbc.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, okay, so let's talk about this chapter for a second, yes? although there is an overarching plot, and a rather unoriginal one at that, a lot of what's going on in these early chapters was greatly inspired by a kink meme prompt (ha, I know!) along the lines of "Light thinks he's special because L is willing to have sex with a suspect, but as it turns out, L fucks all of his suspects. Cue Aiber, Wedy, B, etc." so, um, I wasn't kidding when I said that L fucks everybody for justice. next chapter, be on the look-out for major l/light cliche number two: beyond birthday.
> 
> much love to you all for reading.


	4. quiet things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what happened here? This chapter - and the next, which more or less immediately follows it - pretty much wrote itself. And it didn't write itself particularly well. Stay tuned for the longest, most un-sexy sex scene, with the least amount of actual sex contained therein. If that doesn't make sense now, it will soon.

_"the gentleness that comes,  
not from the absence of violence, but despite  
the abundance of it."_  
\- Richard Siken, _Crush_.

 

\---

 

It's morning and Light has tea and miso and L has a coffee cake and a coffee and they're both more or less bodily exhausted at the little make-shift breakfast table, so when L sucks the crumbs off of his finger and casually says, "You really have to stop beating up on me," Light doesn't even bother to glare.

"What are you talking about?" he says, sighing deep and long-sufferingly, as if he can play his way out of this with a roll of his eyes.

"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about. Don't be deliberately obtuse." L sets down his mug and pulls the collar of his shirt down to reveal the angry purple bruises lining his lower collar bone, watching Light's eyes twist with a little bit of surprise and something sharply like arousal, before going blank and unassuming. "If you want to play the hapless victim correctly, Light-kun," he continues, "you have to stop injuring me. You almost sprained my wrist the other day. I had to get Watari to bring me ice while you were sleeping."

It's been like this all week, since Aiber in the bathroom, and L has been looking for some way to shift Light's overbearing possessiveness to his advantage, but so far all he's got to show for his attempts are finger shaped bruises and bite marks. Every time L has talked to Aiber since, or even Wedy, Light has jerked him away as quickly as possible, brow crumpled and eyes seething, just waiting until they're alone so that he can pin L to the nearest flat - or not flat, he's become considerably less picky - surface and kiss and touch and _hurt_ him. L doesn't particularly mind the injuries so much as he does the negative effect the behavior has been having on their rapport. Light has barely spoken to him in the past few days, outside of work and asking if L is going to let him fuck him yet.

To the latter, L had said no. Partly out of pure self-preservation, and partly because it isn't the right time yet. Light is too angry to really let L in, to let him see him for what he is.

Light goes statuesque and tightlipped as soon as L says this, composing himself to be as distantly polite as possible. 

"Are you sure I did that to you?" he says, and then with a slightly cruel tilt to his voice, "Maybe it was Aiber. Or Wedy, I suppose. I've heard she has quite the grip."

He's baring his teeth at L, fists going tight, and he's really nowhere near the liar that he had been. He's obviously angry, and if L doesn't play this conversation right he's probably going to end up spread out on the breakfast table with Light pinning him down.

It's not as if L couldn't fight him off, and rather easily at that - he's professionally trained in eight forms of martial arts and non-professionally trained in several more - but that would be counterproductive. He'd thought maybe he could ride Light's annoyance out, let him work out his issues on his body and then go back to the comfortable closeness of before, but Light seems to work himself into fits of rage as easy as he breathes or does calculus. He's so brilliant and so childish and so _angry_ , and it might be tragically enamoring if it didn't hurt as much as it does.

L takes a bite of his coffee cake and rolls his eyes. "I haven't touched Aiber or Wedy and you know it," he says. "You're with me 24/7."

"No, but they've touched you," Light counters, quietly vicious.

He can see Light gritting his teeth and half of him wants to cup that jaw, to hold him steady and drag his fingers through his hair and tell him to be calm. Kira is really quite a terrible mess of a person under that perfect mask of his, and there's a part of L that, when faced with this confused, virtually innocent version of him, wants to believe that he could somehow save Light. Make him see the error of his ways, make him understand. But L is not so idealistic, and Light would never stand for it, anyway.

"I'm almost a little disappointed," L says, slumping forward to drop a few more sugar cubes into his coffee, purposefully neglecting to look at Light directly as he speaks. "I'm nurturing a bit of hope that this is all part of some overarching, murderous scheme, because, otherwise, this blatant jealousy is rather beneath you." His spoon clinks against the cup as he stirs the sugar in.

"Really?" Light snaps, not seeming to think before he speaks. "I could have sworn _you_ were what was beneath me."

His brow furrows after he says it, and he looks almost disappointed in himself, too, like that hadn't been what he'd meant to say.

He's been like that a lot lately, always glaring and snapping and saying things not half as pretty and neat as the things he usually says. L's trying to decide how to respond to him, to either say something quelling and kind or else bait him further, but before he settles on a course of action, Light is standing abruptly and marching out of the room.

The problem with them - one of the many - is that it's very difficult for either of them to storm off from a fight without dragging the other along after himself. L stumbles up from the chair, trying to keep his balance as he thinks of what to say. This had been his intention, he admits - to get Light to react, to poke and prod him until he did something, but he hadn't quite resolved on what to do after.

At the sound of L's footsteps, Light stops, back tense and jaw grit. L has a brief image of going over and unbuttoning his shirt, of slipping it off of his shoulders and unzipping his trousers, too. Of pressing his face into the back of Light's neck in the way that Light sometimes presses against L. Of taking some sort of initiative that isn't sideways and roundabout and experimental. It's a very quick flash, though, and after it's over he just goes to stand next to Light, a few paces back.

"You're angry," he says.

Light breathes out, sounding suddenly too tired to be truly angry.

"Yeah," he says.

"At me?" L asks, moving closer. He could move his hand now, he could stroke down Light's back and say something comforting. Instead he just stands there, close but not touching, as Light pointedly avoids looking at him.

Light takes a few steps away, facing the small refrigerator and minimal counter space. There's a fully functional gourmet kitchen in Watari's rooms, but L hadn't felt it would be beneficial to provide the taskforce with that kind of distraction. He's sure Light's figured as much out, given the home-made sweets that come out for L virtually once a day, but he hasn't remarked of it and L hasn't asked him. There are a lot of things - most things, really - that they don't need to talk about, they both just _know_ , and further know that the other knows, too.

This is not one of those things.

"I don't know," Light says softly, sounding almost guilty. "I feel weird." He looks over his shoulder at L, eyes not as sharp as usual, expression approaching confused. "You make me feel weird. I'm sorry. I don't know why - "

He cuts off his apology abruptly looking away again, and he looks so young just then and L doesn't know what to do. After a moment, he walks past Light, the chain dragging on the floor between them, and hops up to sit on the counter, legs tucked underneath his chin. He opens the tin next to him and pops a couple of sugar cubes in his mouth, more as an attempt to appear as normal as possible than any actual desire for them.

Light's looking at him with his eyes hazy, the way they sometimes get.

"A man almost killed me during sex, once," L mumbles, crunching.

Light freezes, expression suddenly going focused again, eyes narrowing at L in order to try and spot the lie, or else the truth of it. "One of your suspects?" he says, very slowly.

L drops another sugar cube into his mouth. "Yes, I suppose."

He doesn't remember the sex specifically - it had just been one encounter out of many and it blurs together with the rest of them, pale skin and thin fingers and a wide grin - but he remembers the hand around his throat, remembers the spark in the back of his mind burning him out, remembers the blackness and the feel of the wood floor on his cheek when he had woken. Remembers B's eyes locked on him when he'd dragged a hand through L's hair and said, _"I was trying to kill you."_

L would have been fine with writing it off as accident, but B hadn't let him. _"I was trying to kill you,"_ he'd said, and L had believed him completely.

Light looks at him with something between disgust and fascination and L of course knows that he wants to ask about the who and what and when and why of it. His mouth is set in a line and when he moves closer half of L wants to flinch.

"Why do you let them - " Light starts. "Why do you let _me_ \- "

And L's not sure how relevant it is that Light doesn't refer to himself in the same terms as he does _them_ \- criminals, suspects, ne'er-do-wells - but he does qualify them in the same position of wrongdoing in relation to L. Which is interesting in so far as it's different than what he knows of Light, who is usually unable to identify any wrongdoing in his own actions, no matter how cruel and unusual. Before - the first Light, the _real_ Light, maybe - would never even have so much as questioned his own moral standing, L's sure of it. The way he's wavering now, unsure and ashamed of himself, can only mean progress.

L might feel guilty if he hadn't lost the ability years ago.

"You told me you knew," he says from his perch on the counter, letting his voice go gentler than it had been, no longer sounding as if he's conducting a science experiment.

He more or less is, though _physiological experiment_ is probably more accurate. As he is in all things, Light is the best possible test subject, reacting and rerouting his hypotheses almost constantly, producing results he never would have foreseen. L sort of wishes that he hadn't killed all of those people, but is also sort of glad that he had, because if Light weren't Kira, Light wouldn't be anything and L would be in England now, or the Czech Republic or South Africa or some other place that he isn't, instead of standing in the tacky kitchen of a building that he had built specifically to trap an eighteen-year-old boy, regaling him with tales of his sex life in the same tone you would use to tell a horror story.

"That was before," Light scoffs, "when I thought it was just me. You think I'm Kira." It's maybe the first time he's ever said those words with something closer to pride than anger. "You think I'm your equal, and I am. It makes sense. But anyone else, it's wrong, they shouldn't - "

He sounds honest, which probably means he's lying while simultaneously planning out L's murder step-by-step in his head, but still. He sounds honest.

L gets down off of the counter. He thinks it's probably safer if he stays up there, as far away as possible, but he gets down and goes over and stands before Light, and it feels very mechanical, but also very unpracticed, like these are new movements that his body has just learned.

"We do plenty of wrong things for justice, Light," he says, and his voice is quieter than he means it to be, but he decides when he hears it that it's just the right volume. "I think you know that. Or you did, at one point."

Light meets his eyes then, caught off-guard even though he shouldn't be, should be used to it by now. There's too long of a silence before he speaks, and he doesn't quite manage to sell the cynical laugh as he turns away and says, "Can we please let up with this 'memory loss' stuff, L? Just this once. I'm not any different than I've always been."

He says _L_ instead of _Ryuzaki_ , and L thinks to correct him, but he doesn't.

"Yes, Light-kun," he says, quiet still. "We can let up."

They don't speak much today either, both concerned with their separate bits of research and avenues of investigation, and although the silence is not particularly congenial, it's not angry either. Even when Aiber comes by to ask a question about Coil and leans so far over L that he might topple over, Light doesn't glare or sneer or bite out his tight, sharp smile. If anything, he might actually roll his eyes, giving them the once over before going back to his work.

L isn't sure how he feels about that. L isn't sure about a lot of things lately.

 

\---

 

Light shifts his strategy.

That's what you do when something isn't working - which is rare for Light, but it happens - you do _something else_. That something else is easy to slip into, after years of practice, of smiling softly and opening doors and saying quiet, clever things to make the girls giggle and blush behind their hands, overjoyed that he's even speaking of them. It doesn't take much mental strain for him to come to the conclusion that Aiber isn't exactly going to go for that, not with the terms they're on now, so his best bet in this situation is Wedy.

Light doesn't really know much about her beyond what L has told him - thief, L's former case, currently in L's employ. The whole sex thing, which Light's not going to think about anymore than he has to, because for some reason doing so makes him grit his teeth so hard his jaw starts to ache. L has fucked Wedy. L fucks everyone, it seems, and Light files the information away in some well-guarded little folder in the back of his mind full of information on L, examining it calmly and coldly, just another piece of the enigma.

L fucks everyone and Light is fine with that, he really is, but right now he wishes he had a way to get L to fuck off.

"That's fascinating," Light says, eyes crinkling with his smile. Wedy is showing him how she had placed the cameras in the Yotsuba members' homes and vehicles to leave as few blind spots as possible, although sounding rather bored as she does it, red painted fingernail flicking from screen to screen.

When he'd asked her to talk to him about some of her infiltration and surveillance techniques she'd looked surprised for a moment, cocking a suspicious eyebrow. "L?" she'd said, and Light had known she would - teaching the prime suspect how to break in is as good as teaching him to break out, after all - but L had just nodded, silently watching them. As Light had known he would.

After initiating a conversation with them, it's usually only a matter of time before most people end up adoring Light - if they hadn't at first glance - or at least respecting him, but Wedy is professional and, unlike with L, suddenly not one for extraneous conversation, and he ends up having to do a lot of legwork just to get her to speak.

"Excuse me if this is intrusive," he says, lowering his head slightly to look up at her through his eyelashes, "but I was just wondering how L ever managed to catch you? World's greatest detective or not, you're extremely adept at your profession." He says it as respectfully as he can, because thievery is still a crime and she is still a criminal, but seeing as that information isn't of much use to him currently, he sets it aside.

She looks at him evenly, eyes only glancing briefly over his shoulder to shoot a look at L, who's been watching the conversation as unsubtly as possible since the beginning.

"It is intrusive," she says, breathing out a long plume of smoke that catches him right in the face - L has long given up trying to get her to take her cigarette breaks outside, because every day is one long cigarette break for her. "And I bet you can answer that question for yourself if you think hard enough about it. You're a smart boy, right? "

Her lips twitch but she doesn't smirk, and Light gets the distinct impression that L has said something to her, because otherwise she'd be putty in his hands right now. Either that or she's just intoxicated; she's been drinking gin by the barrel all day, Light wonders that she doesn't just load up an IV and roll it around after her.

"I've been told as much," Light replies, trying to angle the conversation in a genial direction while simultaneously fighting hard not to roll his eyes. Everything Wedy says sounds like it's straight out of a 40's noir thriller, and he vaguely wonders if the only spy training she's had had been from the movies.

"Wedy," L speaks up suddenly, cheek squished childishly against his palm when Light turns to look at him. He's nodding at something across the room. "You have good reflexes. Matsuda's about to drop something. Go help him."

Matsuda does, in fact, look like he could take out several full-grown men with the foot-high stack of documents that he's clutching to his chest like a precious family heirloom. Wedy cocks a look at L that expresses a sentiment along the lines of, _'This is so far beneath me,'_ but gets up to do as asked. Light watches her go with a mixture of amusement and frustration.

"It's not going to work," L says, when Wedy is barely out of earshot. Light looks over at him, face as innocent as possible, even though they both know exactly what he's trying to do.

"What are you talking about, Ryuzaki?" Light asks, going back to his computer screen.

"Wedy's a professional, and that aside, she's known plenty of men like you."

He's not eating anything, but his fingers are tugging at his lower lip and Light really wishes he wouldn't do that, because not only is it an infantile, unsanitary habit, it's also terribly distracting.

"Like me how?" Light asks, leaning back in his chair again, laptop forgotten.

"Oh," L says, eyes rolling up as if he's just now giving it some thought, "charming," he says, "and ruthlessly manipulative."

Light has to physically prevent himself from laughing out loud, because he knows that L is hypocritical, that he hides behind a mask of justice while being secretly so far from just that the starkness of the lie is almost poetic. L doesn't seem poetic, reeks of computers and technology and mechanized logic, but he is. That's the secret to everything, maybe. In the same way that Wedy is the femme fatale of her own private drama, L has constructed himself a place as the Sherlock Holmes of his personal little mystery, where he is the good guy and Light is the Moriarty, the villain pulling the strings.

L is poetic in the same ways that he is unreasonable: quietly. To look at him, you'd think he was the antithesis of subtlety, but Light's spent enough time with him to know that he's not, that there are layers and layers to everything he says. And so when he calls Light, _'ruthlessly manipulative,'_ it's, of course, not even close to all that he's doing.

Light's lips quirk clever at him. "So take away the charming part and we're talking about you, yes?" he says, because under the layer of arrogance that is under the layer of social awkwardness, there is a strange self-deprecation to L, like even from behind his play-acting, behind his facade as the face of justice, he knows his flaws, knows that he is not the person he ought to be.

Light knows he's hit the nail on the head from the way L's expression stops its frozen stare and fades out into a distant, unreadable sort of pleasure, almost like he enjoys the fact that Light can read him so well. Maybe he does.

"I like to think I'm very charming," L says, biting his thumb, and of course he's not even attempting to make the lie sound believable.

Light huffs a quiet laugh, deciding to get back to working on Wedy some other day. He has more important things to do. "You like to think a lot of things," he says, and for possibly the first time ever the fact of this doesn't really bother him.

Watari calls in to tell L that there's a call for him on the secondary line, but L insists that they have more important concerns and closes the line before Watari can offer anything approaching an argument.

 

\---

 

Light had made some comment about not having been outside for weeks, mostly just poking fun, not really meaning anything by it, but L had taken him up to the roof anyway. L - obviously, given the chain, given that they're never more than six feet from one another - hasn't been outside for weeks either. He just hadn't noticed. Watari sometimes has him take pills for vitamin D deficiency because it's not uncharacteristic for L not to notice. He forgets, sometimes, that there's a world out there, and it always rather shocks him to see it.

They stand on the roof for a bit, but it's cold and the view doesn't really mean a thing to either of them and Light looks more than a little relieved to get back to their heated, cushy bedroom. The bedsheets are warm in comparison to their skin, and although they might intend to kiss or touch or fuck - because now is one of those times that L feels like it would be easy, like he wouldn't really have to force himself at all - they end up staring at the ceiling and talking about Yotsuba and then about the case in Argentina two years ago, because although the methods are very different, the motives for the two cases appear quite similar. That takes them to the subject of world travel, and all the places L has been and that Light pretends he has no interest in visiting while being quite obviously jealous. They talk about the sort of far away, mundane things that don't need to be skated around and carefully measured and secreted away.

They talk about the sort of things that friends might talk about.

"I hate snow," Light says emphatically, at one point.

It's unremarkable as a comment in and of itself, especially from a sheltered teenager who get extremely annoyed if there's dirt on his shoes, but from Light it's almost endearing in its innocence, its straightforwardness of sentiment. His brow is crumpled softly and his hair is in his eyes and, "I hate snow," he says, and L thinks - for surely the first time with regard to Light, and maybe the first time with regard to anybody - that this is someone that he does not want to leave.

He thinks nothing of prosecuting him, or finding out beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's Kira - that seems an inevitability. He just doesn't want to leave. There will be other cases after the Kira case, and that makes L sad in ways he's not sure he knows how to be.

"My first memory is of a snowstorm," he says, which draws Light's eyes from the ceiling and over to him. L would like to think that he hadn't meant to say it, but he suspects he rather had. Not now, but the thought has been hanging in the back of his mind lately, with the bells. He doesn't ever think of the snowstorm, except for those time that he does, those times that it claws its way out from the corner that he'd put it in and then it's in him and it's cold and white and terrifying in a way that nothing else has ever been.

Light is still looking at him and his eyes are so warm that L doesn't really know what to do with the expression in them. Or, well - of course he knows what to do with them, with Light and the way Light is looking at him and what he's obviously feeling for him. He just can't seem to make himself do it. Making Light fall in love with him seems simple at this point, like some errand that he's been putting off and will get around to any day now.

He flicks his gaze along Light's collarbone, cheek pressed into the pillow, and meets his warm eyes. "I don't think I knew that it was a snowstorm at the time," he says. "I don't think I knew what a snowstorm was. I was very, very small and cold and I was being carried by someone, either toward or away from a church. I remember the church-bells."

Light's fingers are coasting through his hair then, brushing it up out of his eyes, and it's so easy. It's easy to make him believe it, to make him think of L as some tragic, misfortunate hero, to make him feel things the way L can make anyone feel things, if he puts his mind to it. There is nothing his mind cannot do, no criminal he cannot catch. If there's something like guilt licking deep and hollow and the pit of his stomach, then that's nothing to do with any of this. With _justice_.

Light's fingers smooth across his forehead, and they're warm like they always are, a familiar pressure.

"That sounds like the beginning of a Victorian-era tragedy," Light says softly, but he's smiling slightly, looking at L with a fondness usually reserved solely for his own reflection and a few particularly well-tailored suits.

And it does, doesn't it? L's never been very good at navigating the cliches. He is sure he is a cliche himself sometimes, and other times a wild anomaly. He is not quite certain of how to categorize Light within those parameters, either. Light, who is looking at him with the sort of eyes that schoolgirls daydream about, or maybe schoolboys, because Light could shift even the most discerning of tastes. He looks, in fact, so overcome with sheer adoration that, within the space of a few seconds, a thousands little neurons firing through his brain, L manages to convince himself that Light is just acting, that Light hasn't fallen for it and never will. Anything else is almost disappointing.

So, he turns his head slightly, slipping out from under Light's fingers, and says, "That's because I just made it up."

L is always making things up. L is just as much of a liar as Light, truth be told.

Light's eyes widen slightly, brows going up, and then he does something horrible and incongruent that makes L's stomach shift uncomfortably. He laughs. "I should expect as much," he says, shaking his head with that familiar air of long-suffering annoyance, but he doesn't seem truly put off by it, and that's where the trouble lies. "Can't you ever tell me something about yourself that's _true_?"

L looks at him for a long moment, then shifts slightly, reaching over to get his laptop. "There are no true things about me, Light-kun," he says quietly. And then, without fully intending to, "Now go to sleep, we've got a long day tomorrow."

Light looks genuinely surprised then, mouth opening and then closing quickly, trying to catch up with L's shift. He watches L for a second and then nods, but doesn't actually do as he says and go to sleep either. Sniffing slightly, he digs up his own set of documents and matches L page for page, hour for hour, not sleeping until L takes pity and shuts his laptop, pretending to settle in for the night so that Light will, too.

It's a kindness, maybe, but cruel in that it only delays the inevitable.

 

\---

 

When Light wakes, L isn't there.

Everything stutters into dim focus in the low light of the early morning and so much has happened in this room that Light would have assumed that nothing could surprise him at this point, but L isn't there and it's like that moment, like breaking a vase or a mirror, and that moment just before it hits the ground where you're sure that what you've dropped isn't really falling, that it won't really break, but then it does and you sit there looking at the pieces and wondering how it had happened and why you can't just put it back. It's such a small moment, not even really a proper space in time, that it shouldn't count.

Light feels like that. He sits up in bed and L is gone and he feels like that for a long time.

He's been with L for just a little under three months, but he's woken every day next to him, and today he isn't there and Light just sits there not knowing what to do with himself.

The cuff still digs into his wrist, but the other end of the chain is wrapped around the bed post and Light watches it with the hazy unease of morning. He shifts and it clinks with the movement.

They've made more progress on the case in the last few weeks than they have in the last few months. They're closing in on Yotsuba. Kira is becoming more and more obviously not Light. But in that moment, as he sits there in the bed by himself, Kira seems very small and L seems very, very large. Like one of them is real and one of them is a dream Light had once.

The sheets smell like come and detergent and then three things happen very quickly, so quickly that they might as well occur all at once.

The first is that L walks into the room, shutting the door softly behind him like he's afraid of making any noise. He looks even thinner than usual in the gaunt shadows of dawn and something that would be a smile if L was a person who made facial expressions flits through his eyes when he sees Light there, awake.

The second is that Light smiles back, opens his mouth to say something very clever and very charming, and ends up coughing loudly. His throat is still lodged with the thickness of sleep and he might have been coming down with something yesterday besides, so he just greets L by hacking into the crease of his elbow with little dignity. L stands at the door and watches him. He's got his cell phone clutched in one hand and his wrist looks bare without the handcuff around it.

The third thing that happens is very quiet. Light realizes - or maybe resolves - in that moment that he is never going to fall in love, but if he were going to fall in love it would be with L and it would be right then.

It's a horrible realization, almost, because L is wrong in so many ways and this isn't the life that Light is supposed to have. But L's jawline is sharp and his presence is comforting in the same way that being alone used to be. Light's eyes water embarrassingly at the sting in his throat when he clears it.

There's an alternate universe somewhere, maybe, in which they've never met and _L_ is just a letter in the Latin-derived alphabet to him. By that logic, there must also be universes where at this point Light rolls his eyes and says something snide - like, "I'm flattered that you trust me to sleep all on my own," - or scoffs and rolls over, or just pulls L onto the bed with rough hands and demands that they fuck. Those would be the smart things to do, the right ways to play the game. 

In the current universe, though, Light doesn't do any of those things.

He swallows, wetting his throat, and looks at L's exhausted frame, at the phone clutched in his hand.

"What is it?" he asks, quietly.

Because L wouldn't have left him on his own unless it was something important, wouldn't look so heavy and small, standing there with his back to the door. He stares at Light for a long moment, then steps forward, walking to about halfway across the room and then stopping again like he doesn't know how to go any further.

Light should just shrug it off, but he waits patiently for L's steps to pick back up again, for him to make it to the edge of the bed. The sheets are cool and Light's skin is warm against them. When L leans over and kisses him, it's a gentle press of something so sharp and bright and terrifying that he forgets for a moment how to kiss back. In an alternate universe he is suave and perfect, but in this one his mouth opens at the wrong time and his hands are unsteady and - and this is it, this is the vase crashing to the floor.

This is the tiny space in time where he would fall in love, if he were the type of person who did things like fall in love.

L pulls back. They're always on level ground - or otherwise a sliding scale and wins and losses that balance out - but Light suddenly feels much, much younger than L. It settles in him, a new sensation. He doesn't think he'd even felt this young when he'd been a child, can't remember a time when he wasn't far and above everyone around him. It strikes him, vaguely, in the back of his mind, that he might be a very different person if he had grown up surrounded by people like himself.

Before L, he hadn't know that there _was_ anyone out there like himself. 

L steps back to pull off his shirt before reaching quickly past the gaunt outlines of his ribs to pluck at the button of his jeans. He drops his phone on the mattress with a soft sound, and Light leans back on his hands, just watching. L takes off his underwear, too, and Light watches harder.

He is beautiful in the way that very dirty, ugly things are beautiful. The fact that he is beautiful at all jags sharply through Light's mind as an inaccuracy, but he must be, because he looks it then. He is long and tall and black and white. He looks like something out of a story about death.

The first time, the night L had up and planted himself in his lap not a month and a half ago, Light had been surprised by how heavy he'd been, a solid body instead of the wisp of bone and hair he appears to be. By now the weight of him is familiar and when he slides across the bed and into Light's lap, it's with a cool, quiet familiarity that aches through Light when they touch. He tries to remind himself that L doesn't even really like him, that this is all just an elaborate strategy, that they tend to hate each more often than not.

He tries to remind himself, but the way L's thighs stretch across his lap is unbearable, a quick, harsh choke of sensation that isn't physically felt so much as psychologically experienced. Light remembers that fantasy of strangling him and it's even more perfect now than it had been, with L in his lap, with L looking like the gutted insides of a fairytale prince and acting stranger than all of the usual put together. 

He pulls Light's pants down his hips and Light nearly coughs again because of how his breath flinches through his throat to catch and wheeze and gut through him, making him feel sick and powerful and powerless and like maybe in an alternate universe he would know what to do. Maybe he would grab L by the hair and make him suck his cock, make him weak the way Light feels weak, make him beg for all of the things that Light wants so much to beg for.

And maybe in another alternate universe Light would love him and love him so well that it would be the end of the story. Maybe when L wraps his fingers around Light's cock, Light's hips wouldn't stutter helplessly and his eyes wouldn't get blurry and the ends of his fingers wouldn't feel hollow and cold with a searing sort of want, but in this universe all of that happens and it is either horrible or wonderful or a curious mix of the two.

L's hand slides over his cock, barely pausing before he moves onto his thighs and hips and waist, petting the skin like a tease until Light is almost gasping underneath him, face flushed and palms clenched against the mattress. He wants to grab at L, pull him close, make him touch and stroke and do all the things that he ought to, but he can't seem to move from his desperate slump, heady with the barest traces of L's touch.

L gives him a good long squeeze eventually, but it's slow and ungenerous, pulling at his insides, at his coiled muscles like some wonderfully debilitating disease. 

In a weird way, Light considers what it would be like to die here and now, and it scares him, because for the moment it somehow feels like a very real possibility, one that it is terrifying because it means that all of this will stop and go away and be gone, and the idea that this could be anything but here and real and vibrant and all over him, crawling under the skin and peeling back his eyes and lodging thick across his tongue, hurts him in a way that cannot be measured, or spoken, or even properly felt. Light doesn't know how to properly feel this. It would be terribly romantic if it were romantic at all, but it is just offset and strange and wrong, wrong, wrong in the most right of ways, like a story you want to blot out and re-write, except you know it will come out the same every time, that there is no other way for the story to go, so you just freeze solid and shivering warm. Light feels like that.

Light feels things that he doesn't know the words for.

He feels sick and strange, like a part of his mind has broken off and gone away, and he decides this is what love must feel like. The sensation now must be the echoes of it, from a phantom limb that was chopped off years ago or maybe never there to begin with.

L touches him again and Light is getting his hand sticky wet with pre-come and it's probably pathetic, but he doesn't care. He wants to ask what has happened, what's the matter, because the cell phone is still on the bed next to them and L is acting strange in a way that he doesn't usually and _something_ must have happened. Something must be the matter, but Light can't tell what it was and he can't manage to care as much as he probably should.

L's hand is squeezing him so roughly that it feels like he's being gripped by death itself and he's never felt anything better in his entire life. It's not even good. _Good_ is not the right word for it, but nothing is better, nothing compares.

"L," Light chokes out through the dry strain of his throat, because a part of him is sure it can't breathe and another part is gasping like a man fresh from the sea,

L leans his forehead against Light's own and he looks very serious and very sad and very tired, all without making any expression at all. He presses his lips to Light's temple and says, in the softest, lowest, most important voice that anyone has ever said anything in, "Sometimes I want to pretend that the only thing that's ever happened to me is you."

The words rock through Light like a fever and he finally remembers that he has hands and that his hands have fingers and he brings them up to ghost along L's arms and across his back, clutching him close. L's back is so, so thin that it feels like the back of somebody else, somebody with much less height and influence, and Light's nails tickle the ends of L's hair and L's hair tickles his nails and it's gorgeous in the most unexplainable way.

Light wants to say something very powerful and meaningful back to L, but what he does is lean up and kiss him very, very hard with lips that had somehow become chapped between now and the last time he'd paid attention to anything at all besides L.

L kisses him back and it's a terrible thing, except for the fact that it's the best thing that has ever happened. Light feels unlike himself, like Light Yagami is someone he made up once and played around with the idea of, but wasn't overly attached to in the end. Someone he would gladly sacrifice in exchange for becoming a thing that kisses L and cards its fingers through L's hair and thrusts its cock into L's hands and gasps sharp and uncontrollable into the long tunnel of L's throat.

It's foreign, because the most important thing to Light at all times has always been Light himself and the moment that that fades into the background and L moves in - crowding him, taking up the foreground, taking all of everything - he's struck by just how stifling it is to be himself and just how wonderful it would be to be anybody else.

_Like Kira_ , something whispers in the back of his mind, and it thrills within him as he jams his hip up into L's, hands grasping at the thin skin over his shoulder blades to drag L even further onto his lap, until he's practically sitting on Light's cock, long body wrapped around him in a hunch.

_Like Kira_ , he thinks agains, as he grinds himself into the crease between L's legs, not caring particularly that L is struggling slightly, trying to slow him down.

It's only once those long fingers have locked into his hair, jerking him into a bent-back gasp that's stuck somewhere between shock and mortified arousal, that L manages to climb off of his lap and over to the small nightstand to dig in the drawer for something that is shortly tossed over at Light, hitting him squarely in the chest. He looks down at where the condom has landed in his lap and wants to say one of those clever things that he would say if this were a normal situation, but it isn't, so he doesn't. It's special, and not in any of the ways that first-times are supposed to be. It's special in the way that very strange and sudden things are, special because it shouldn't be happening like this and wouldn't have happened like this if it were any other day and L were playing the game right.

But L doesn't seem to be playing the game at all right now.

He's got a little tube in his hands that he's flipping open and squirting onto his fingers, and Light's thoughts as he watches him are nothing more than a heady mix of _lube_ and _fuck_ and _nghhh_. Then L is kneeling across his lap again, fingers slipping down behind his back to press into his own ass, and Light's breath rushes out so quickly he almost gets spots behind his eyes. He wants to watch, to see L's long fingers sliding in and out of himself, to shove his own fingers in beside his and make L take whatever he wants to give him. To _give it to him_ the way L clearly so clearly needs to be given it.

As it is, Light can barely move, so paralyzed with scintillating arousal as he is. Head swimming, he groans thickly and vaguely considers passing out, but ultimately decides against it.

L's hands are cold and large as they slide over his cock, getting Light wet, making it easy for him to slide inside. The thought burns into him, the image of shoving inside L and staying there as long as he likes, crawling into him and dying like some helpless creature with nowhere else to go. His mind keeps fuzzing over and he can barely breathe, barely think straight, and this isn't really how it was supposed to go at all, but nothing else could ever possibly feel better.

Light means to fuck L, but it ends up more like L fucking himself on Light's dick, straddling him and sinking down until he's completely filled, then picking himself up again. Over and over and over. Light just watching on in awe.

It feels different than he'd thought it would - and he's imagined it enough times for it to qualify as patently pathetic - and much, much better than it logically should, because it's just bodies, just animal movements in and against each other, hormonal reactions caused by a mixture of chemicals. It's his cock is in L's ass and it shouldn't feel like a fucking religious experience, but it does. He wants to scrub his eyes and shove L away, but he can't move except to thrust his hips up to meet L's, dig his blunt nails into L's back and try to speak against his collarbone, only to manage half-formed, near-worshipful whispers.

He's sure now that this isn't love, because it feels like dying, like a choreographed demise and he can't even think of the morning after because he's convinced himself that he isn't going to wake up, that after this nothing really exists, and everything before was rather a dream or a story or something, and he can't breathe, he -

He legitimately can't breathe, he's going to die here _he's going to die_ and L is going to kill him and he's the one who's supposed to kill L and is that just the part of him that whispers _Kira_ talking or is that really _him_ him and why have his eyes rolled back and why is his vision blank and who's voice is that coming out of his mouth and -

Is he dead yet?

He either has a panic attack or he comes, thick and overwhelming and groaning noiselessly into L's shoulder. He feels L's fingers in his hair and L's cock still hard against his stomach and the gentle rocking of L's hip against his, still on him, still riding him - and _oh god_ , that almost hurts. He's too oversensitive, but he can't move his mouth to tell L to stop, so he just lies slumped against him, arms wrapped loose and heavy as L gets himself off on gentle press from Light's limp cock and his thin hand grappling desperately with his own.

_Sometimes I want to pretend that the only thing that's ever happened to me is you_ , Light thinks.

He's still not sure that he hasn't died.

 

\---

 

The word _empty_ gets bandied about by a lot of people nowadays, so much so that it's become a bit like _nice_ , in that it doesn't really have a meaning of its own any longer, at least in the metaphorical sense. _Empty_ is a word for teen angst and drugstore novels and when one reaches the bottom of the sugar bowl. _Empty_ is cheap and kitschy. Nothing makes L roll his eyes more when skimming through paperback mysteries than the phrase, _"He felt empty."_ Oh, did he? Did his organs slip out? Was he just _so_ very sad? L only reads paperback mysteries to sneer at them in the first place, but _"He felt empty,"_ just makes it too easy.

But standing out in the hall outside of his and Light's shared bedroom, L stares down at the dull grey carpeting and he feels _empty_.

He's got a lot of words in his head, a virtual dictionary that he can sort through quicker than the blink of an eye, but he cannot come up with a better word than _empty_. He hasn't felt like this in years. He thinks he'd forgotten that it was possible for him to feel this horrible.

Other people, sure. There are always suicides and he is always being called onto them - _"Prove that my sister was murdered, Mr. L!"_ and, _"He never would have hung himself, trust me, I knew him,"_ and all kinds of well-meant but horribly annoying drivel of the like - and it always _is_ suicide. People are sad and people kill themselves and it is a fact and a fact that L knows well. But those are _other people_.

L is L and L is justice and L is not supposed to feel the way he feels now.

But the phone had kept ringing - out of earshot, of course, the secondary line is always left with Watari - and L had known, L had _known_ , but he'd finally picked up anyway, finally taken the call.

_The California Institute of Mental Health, Los Angeles Branch. Please hold for prisoner no. 9012398. Thank you._

When the call had finally connected, B's voice had sounded older and a bit harsher - maybe he'd taken up smoking, as one supposedly does in prison - but not unfamiliar. It hadn't even been a bad conversation, as far as conversations go with them - circular, of course, repetitive in nature and certainly quite inappropriate for the workplace, but L has had years to get used to that. It had just brought everything up with it, like being sick.

And the sickness had come out all over Light and now L is empty and it's ridiculous, it's so ridiculous, because he is too good for this melodrama, he is above feeling these things that he is feeling, but Light is Kira and Light is going to kill him or he is going to kill Light and _he is empty_. He can barely make his feet move.

He's still just standing there when Wedy walks by, raising an eyebrow over her cigarette. "Nice shirt," she says.

L looks down. He's wearing Light's button-down pajama top. He must have put it on by mistake when he'd dressed, pulling clothes on mechanically as Light had drifted off to sleep. He hadn't noticed. If he thinks about it, it's probably really quite funny - and the look on Wedy's face confirms as much - but he doesn't think about it.

"I wish that you wouldn't do that indoors," L says, watching Wedy blow half-formed smoke rings around the hallway. He's not sure what she's doing skulking around at this time of night, but then skulking at night is about 75% of her profession so maybe he should just label it practice and let it go.

She looks at him from under her eyelids, glance skating across his bare wrist. "Where's your better half?" she asks in her silky voice, the one that sounds like it was made purely for times like these. Quiet chats in the middle of the night.

L looks down at his wrist. It's strange, the way it moves now, too fast and forceful, like his muscles have been trained to expect being weighed down, tugged this way and that. There are a few red marks, skin chafed from the metal, but other than that it looks like it's always looked, pale and thin across his bones. 

L doesn't answer the question, instead says, "Watari's asleep."

Wedy gives him a blank look. "So?"

"So," L says, eyes drifting down to the shifting patterns within the carpet, growing and changing with every flick of the low light, "given your status as a practicing alcoholic, you must have a stash of gin of your very own, for times just such as these?"

If possible, Wedy's eyebrow arches even higher.

 

\---

 

When Light wakes for the second time, L is gone again. It's hard to tell that he'd ever been there at all, the only difference being his white shirt puddled on the floor like a deflated ghost, and… the handcuffs. The handcuffs are lying across the bed, on the side where L usually curls up, pretending to sleep.

Light's wrist is completely free.

 

\---

 

Watari is taking his four hours and so they end up in his surveillance room, watching the quiet building stay quiet. L is curled up on his chair and Wedy is sprawled in hers, two very expensive highball glasses between them.

"No," L says, "more." He motions for her to continue pouring. "Due to my rather extensive training, I have a very high alcohol tolerance."

The drinking had come before pain tolerance but after verbal interrogations. Alcohol is an age-old method of loosening the tongue among the seedier criminal elements and so it follows by direct course that L has been able to drink most grown men under the table since he was fifteen. As a general rule, he doesn't really like alcohol - unless it's particularly sweet, and even then he's better off with a nice virgin pina colada - but tonight it goes down easy, like fuel to a tank.

Wedy watches him with heavy eyes. "Shame," she says, after a moment of long quiet, "I was planning on getting you wasted and taking advantage."

That's all of what Wedy is: clever lines and quiet moments.

L watches the last drops slide down his glass, landing harsh and bitter on his tongue, and he winces with it. It tastes horrible. He feels horrible. He's just fucked Kira. Light Yagami. Kira. Does it really matter which? He'd wager he dislikes them both equally.

"You know I don't need to be drunk for you to do that," he says, pouring himself some more.

Wedy sips her own, glance skating away from him and over to the lines of monitors, thick with static and stillness. She shrugs. "According to Aiber, you've gone… soft." Her glance down at his crotch is as far from subtle as possible and L assumes that invoking the name of Aiber must somehow have the immediate effect of lending a quaint sleaziness to all situations.

He almost rolls his eyes. "I have more pressing concerns of late," he says dismissively.

She eyes the way Light's shirt hangs across him. "Clearly."

This conversation skates across L's skin and he'd really like to talk to someone he can actually talk to right now, instead of having to put on a show, but Wedy is the only one around and when he'd been alone he hadn't felt like he could breathe. The combination of the alcohol and the conversation is dulling him down, away from the sharp, manic point he'd been at out in the hallway. He tries to think of someone he _would_ actually like to talk to and comes up empty.

Watari is there, Watari is always there and Watari will take care of him if he needs it, but it isn't - they don't _talk_. L doesn't talk to anyone. L doesn't need anyone. L ought to go back into the bedroom before Light wakes up, but L is vaguely terrified.

A strange, small, ugly part of him sort of wishes that B would call again.

Wedy breathes out a thick plume of smoke and then takes a sip from her glass. In her leather pants, she looks like the poster girl for the criminal underworld.

"L," she says, after a long silence, "is he really Kira?"

The question jags through him and he feels vaguely like jumping out of a window. Or drinking this entire bottle of gin. Yes, he really doesn't drink, really doesn't enjoy it at all and would never do such a thing during an important investigation such as this, but he is going to drink this entire bottle of gin and it is a _great_ idea.

"Yes," he says, after several long seconds. "Or no. I think he's lost his memories of being Kira." He watches the liquid dripping slowly into the glass and calculates the amount of alcohol per serving and serving per bottle and then scratches it all out and throws it away, because he doesn't really want to know.

"Convenient," Wedy says.

"Yes, very."

Wedy waits for him to continue and when he doesn't, huffs an impatient breath and taps her long nails against the console. "And you think he did it on purpose?" she asks. He wonders how much she actually cares. Wedy is usually an ask-no-questions type of girl. "How exactly does someone induce memory loss in themselves? Bad bender?"

L shrugs, sips from his highball. "The same basic way someone causes mass heart attacks from a remote location, I'd assume."

"What? Do you honestly think there's some kind of magical ESP power involved?"

Wedy is a skeptic. Being skeptical is one of her favorite hobbies, second only to being cynical, and she practices them both with the air of someone who has done all of the other things there are to do already and has fallen back on these just as a matter of course. He knows that's untrue, of course, knows her whole history top to bottom, and though it's no jaunt in the park, he's known histories a fair bit worse.

Still, he likes her skepticism. It fills the space where his own should be.

"There's a rational explanation for everything," he tells her, making a face at his drink. He wonders if it wouldn't be completely ridiculous for him to sprinkle some sugar into it. "Just, depending on what the Kira case reveals, I may have to reassess my definition of what qualifies as _rational_." He pauses for a moment, then adds, because he can't make himself not, "Besides, it wouldn't be ESP, anyway, which refers to a theoretical trans-temporal method of receiving or transmitting information, not remotely causing myocardial infraction. In fact, anything falling under the umbrella term of parapsychology wouldn't qualify for Kira, although there were a series of interesting experiments in the 1960's using - "

"Okay, okay," Wedy says, cutting him off with a sharp series of clicks from her nails against the table. She smiles at him with indulgent annoyance. "You know I don't understand when you use big words."

L scoffs into his glass, feeling as he suspects she must often do, considering the amount of time she spends scoffing into glasses at people. "Yes, you do," he tells her. "I hate when people pretend not to be as smart as they are." The words roll straight off his tongue and he still feels empty, but in a lighter way than he had before. Like he could drift up and out of the room without even really noticing.

"I'm suddenly reminded of why we never fell in blinding, passionate love," she says, and smirks around the words to make them come off as harder than they are. "You never really liked me much, did you, L?"

There'd been a time that he'd hated her, a time when he was 18 and B had only been gone for a year and he hadn't known how to solve her case, how to catch her up, so he'd done the only thing he hadn't tried yet - he'd come onto her. Sex is about power and L had needed power, and instead she'd smiled pretty and dug her nails into his back and - to be slightly crass - kicked his ass in the bedroom. He'd hated her.

"I like you now," he says, and drinks his drink.

She's going to say something back, maybe, and he rather hopes she will because if they're going to have this conversation - this conversation they've never had but always should have - he'd like to do it while intoxicated. But then she stops, eyes catching on something to the left of him, and L glances over at the closest security screen to see what's going on. The first thing that L notices about Light is not that he's out of their room, wandering through the halls unsupervised in the dead of night, but rather the somewhat disappointing fact that he's gotten himself out another sleep shirt instead of putting on L's. Maybe that's a clue that he's had a bit too much to drink.

"Kira's on the loose," Wedy says, stubbing out her cigarette and seemingly thankful for the distraction.

L leans toward another screen, squinting to make out the figure reclined in an arm chair in the room adjoined from the one that Light's walking through. "Not just Kira," he murmurs, and if he were the sort to make vulgar exclamations when unfortunate events occur, he would be swearing like a sailor now.

 

\---

 

It says something about the pathetic state of his priorities that, having found of himself free from the chain, the only thing Light can think to do is to go look for L. He almost wishes he had some sort of devious scheme waiting in the wings, if only because he could use the diversion at this point.

Unfortunately, another diversion presents itself not a few yards away, in the form of tall, blond and the very last person Light wants to see at the moment, save maybe Misa - and only because he hasn't quite sorted out his unreasonable feelings of guilt in regards to her. Aiber is sitting down and there are creases in his slacks and if Light were the type of person to ever feel at all inferior, he might be uncomfortable standing there in his pajamas, but as it is he just crosses his arms and sets his face is a tight, disapproving line, like Aiber is intruding on his existence just by being there instead of L. Which he clearly is.

"Uh oh," Aiber says, setting his book aside - and Light briefly marvels at the idea that he can even read. "How'd you get off the leash?"

He looks like a statue in one angle of the light - broad and fair, like one of those armless, cockless Roman masterpieces, except in a terrible suit instead of a toga. Then he shifts and the dull fluorescents hit him differently and he just looks exhausted, light stubble and tired eyes and only a dim flicker of that jovial vitality that he usually wears as a second skin. Light hasn't really thought about his age before, but he must be a least ten years older than L, maybe more, considering how long they seem to have known each other. That thought might strike Light with something like disgust, if he had room in his head for anything besides the trilling displacement that fills him up in L's absence, in the wake of what had just happened.

"L undid the chain," he says, after what might be too long a pause. His voice sounds strangely distant to his own ears.

Aiber gives him a long look, then stands slowly. "Considering that Kira can control the actions of his victims before they die, I'm not exactly reassured," he says, but it's devil's advocate, he's not afraid at all and Light can tell he's just saying it in order to be contrary, though he still slips a hand into his pocket and pulls out his phone, fingers jabbing deftly into the keyboard, presumably alerting L to the situation. Light doesn't mind; Aiber has only shortened his search.

Light hates that he's not afraid, although he doesn't know why. There is nothing to be afraid of. Light is not frightening, but at the moment, he rather wants to be.

"You don't really believe that I'm Kira," he says, pushing stray hair out of his eyes in a gesture so practiced it's become second nature. "Do you?" Any other time he would say the words with quiet, unassuming charm, displaying a vaguely hurt innocence that would melt everyone in a fifty foot radius. But he says them quite flatly tonight, not putting on a show at all. He uses this voice with L sometimes, late in the night when he forgets to arrange himself, forgets to perform. He wishes L were here now.

He wishes L were here.

It's a very weak thought and Light will resent himself for it later, but he just stands there in his pajamas waiting for Aiber's reply and feeling strange and unlike himself. Like he's lost something. Like L had fucked it out of him.

"No," Aiber says, "I don't." 

The look he follows the words with makes it clear that he doesn't mean to do Light any favors with this opinion. He's just underestimating him, is all. Light isn't Kira, but he _could_ be, if he wanted. He can do anything. He'd just had sex with the world's top three greatest detectives and L is probably in love with him - because how could he not be? - and he could be Kira in a heartbeat. The thought burns through him the way it sometimes does, and although he usually shoves it down, usually _aches_ with it, this time his mind thrills.

"Given how these things usually turn out, though," Aiber continues, watching him with unusual vigilance, "odds say that L's right and I'm wrong." He leans on the wall beside him, hip cocked and trying to look casual, but there's a heaviness to his words that Light has never heard from him before. "Still," he says, "I hope you're not."

"What," Light says, taking the word and wrapping it up in a clever tilt of his lips, "do you think I'd kill you?"

It sounds innocuous - just a taunt - but it fills him up with a sickening jolt of something torrential and ruining, something inside of him that claws at the walls and he thinks maybe he goes lightheaded for a second before everything snaps back into steadying focus and Light realizes what he'd just said. He feels sick. He wants L to hurry up and come chain him up again, but doesn't acknowledge the thought.

Aiber laughs. It sounds hollow. 

"As if you could get my name. Not with L alive, you couldn't. Hypothetically, of course." He checks his phone and smiles slightly, typing something back, and if it's L he's talking to then Light hates the both of them tremendously in that moment. Aiber looks up again. "No," he continues, "I just know that our illustrious leader has, well, a bit of a thing for the criminal element. The badder the better," - and he does a little suggestive eyebrow twitch there that makes Light want to hit him - "and as far as bad goes, Kira's the cream of the crop. I reckon if it turns out you're not him, he'll lose interest in a snap."

He even snaps his fingers for effect. Light grits his jaw and counts backwards from ten.

It's not true. It's not true, and they both know it. Aiber is just slinging impotent barbs around because he's jealous. Light is L's favorite. L keeps him close, sleeps in the same bed as him, never lets him out of his sight. _Where's L now?_ something whispers to him, but he drowns the voice out because the voice doesn't know what the fuck it's talking about. L had come to him, L had come to him and crawled into his lap, had given himself up to Light because Light _deserves_ him, has earned him. It had started as a game, but it's not anymore, or maybe Light has just won and L is his prize, because _this is different_.

L fucks everyone but Light is different and it's okay. L will come and get him and put the chain back around his wrist - why does he want that, he shouldn't want that - and it will all be okay.

"You're wrong," he tells Aiber. "You don't know anything about L."

Aiber actually has the gall to snort at that. "I know a fair bit more than you do, kid," he says, sighing and shaking his head. 

And what right does he have to laugh at Light when Aiber is just a minuscule little bit player in the story that is Light and L, the game that isn't a game. He's nothing. He's nobody. Light is the hero and L is his nemesis, or maybe his right hand man. Or maybe he's L's. It doesn't matter - it's them and no one else, because everyone else is useless and L is the only that's worth anything in this _rotten_ world and -

"I'm not trying to be cruel here," Aiber says, and he sounds honest, but lying is his job and Light doesn't believe a word out of his mouth. "Look, I know, okay? The eyes, the jaw, the quiet tragedy. _I know_. He's got a certain charm about him and he turns it on when you least expect it. But L is not a good man." His phone beeps again, and he looks down at it with a quiet smile. "A great man, maybe, but not a good one."

Light knows that. Light wrote the book on that. L is bad and Light is good - but L is his now, so it's different.

"I'm not stupid," Light says, voice ringing with that pleasant tilt of the tone, and he wants to smile but he feels like he might snarl instead. "I'm Japan's top-ranking student. I know what he is."

"Do you?" Aiber says. "Hmm." And then he looks Light up and down and something bright flicks into his eyes and he says, if not the very last thing Light had expected him to say, then definitely close to it. "'Sometimes I want to pretend that the only thing that's ever happened to me is you.'"

His coyote grin deforms the words and there is a very short moment that feels very long and everything sort of tilts off its axis and falls to the ground.

"What?" Light says, more quietly than he means to, because for a moment he doesn't understand.

Then, for the second time that night, the vase, the mirror, all of it - it shatters.

 

\---

 

Wedy lights another cigarette and watches the scene unfold onscreen like a television program. "Is it really safe to have him off the chain in the first place?" she asks idly.

A plume of smoke catches L in the face and he doesn't wince. "Don't worry," he mumbles into his glass, "he's not going to kill Aiber. As much as we all might wish for it. He's not any danger as he is now."

Still, he should go. Light is his responsibility and although at any other time L might have been interested to test his reactions to Aiber's particular brand of confrontation without L being there to referee, now is unlike any other time for a number of reasons. One of which being that L is rather tipsy.

Another of which is that for the last week or two, L's been getting almost daily calls from The California Institute of Mental Health, Los Angeles Branch, and ignoring them under the guise of keeping his full attention on the case at hand, but in reality only because nothing shakes him up quite like conversing with Beyond Birthday. B makes him rash and young and then he trips up, he always trips up, and this time he'd tripped right into Light's lap, nose-dived into the thing he's been putting off for almost a month and a half. They'd fucked, and if L's track record is any indication, it's not long now before the case will be over.

The case will be over and Light Yagami will be dead, maybe. Maybe L will. He doesn't know why that makes him feel like his insides have been gutted out with a fish hook, but he's half sure that the only thing still sloshing around inside of him is gin and possibly that milkshake he'd had earlier.

His phone buzzes in his pocket. _Lose something?_ says a text from Aiber.

_Misplaced,_ L types back with one quick finger. _I'll be right there._

He doesn't get up. He half considers just sending Wedy in his stead, but even he's not that cruel of an employer. His phone buzzes again. _No need to hurry. I can play guard dog._ He takes that as a sure sign to hurry. On screen, Light's jaw is grit and he looks like he might just go Texas chainsaw on Aiber in the next minute or so. L has purposely left the sound off.

He suspects he's being very unprofessional as he drains his glass, and as much is confirmed when he tries to step smoothly out of his chair and ends up swaying on his feet a bit. He should drink water. He's not in any way headed toward the kitchen, though.

"If he murders me, wake Watari," he says to Wedy without turning around, and then slumps off down the hall. His thighs burn and his head is blurred and he really wants pie after this.

 

\---

 

"Heh. I can't believe he still uses that line," Aiber says, fiddling lazily with his phone.

The world sort of stutters for a second and then everything flips into a sharp point of horrible clarity. _L is not a good man._ He feels sick. He doesn't think he's ever been ashamed of something before in his life, not truly, not that he can recall, but it burns through him now with Aiber's words. He is disgusted with himself and it fills him up with sick understanding, because Light is smart - smarter than anyone - and it doesn't take a genius of his caliber to catch on.

There's a very small, pathetic part of him that can't quite believe that this is happening, and that must be the part of him that speaks first. "He - what did you just say?"

Aiber has a small indentation between his brows that creases when he grins, and maybe it's very handsome, and maybe L has touched it with his long, pale fingers before, a long time ago. Maybe recently. Light feels sick.

"He used it on me, too, the first time," he says. "And Wedy. She told me about it once while we were on a case in Bangladesh. We got completely hammered and swapped all our favorite L stories. I assume he uses it on everyone. All his suspects, I mean." He says this all very quickly, like a performance, and then continues with barely a breath. "It's a good line. I tried it once, but the girl just called me a creep and threw a martini in my face, so I guess it needs to be delivered in some specifically wide-eyed, anemic way. Anyway, you see what I'm getting at, right? You're just another piece on the board with the rest of us and he's the chess-master." 

And he looks at Light then like he is a child, and _no one_ does that to Light - except L - and there's something in his eyes that's almost sympathetic - Light doesn't want his sympathy - Light hates him, hates both of them, hates L more, probably. It's a game. It's all a game. He feels like all the air has been sucked out of the room because _it's just a game_ and _L uses that line on everyone_ and _thinks he's a Kira_ \- he's not Kira, he's not, he's not - but L thinks it and how could Light think that L could - would ever - how could he be so _stupid_?

Light feels sick.

The crease in Aiber's brow shrinks a bit, like the fun has suddenly been taken out of what he's doing. "Don't feel bad or anything," he tries weakly. "The sex is still good, right?"

And - no. No, no, _no_. Light can and has taken a lot - a month of incarceration, a staged execution, _L_ \- but if there's one indignity he won't stand for, it's pity. Not from anyone, and least of all from a half-wit conman who smells like a department store and wears sunglasses indoors. Light is so above him, Light is so above all of them, L included.

L especially.

The world resets in his mind in that moment, the glass un-breaks. L never came into the room and fucked him in the middle of the night - and if he did, then it had only been a game, and Light had played along. It hadn't _meant_ anything. Light had only played along. That is what had happened. The world resets, and Light convinces himself of this reality and rejects all others.

He takes several slow steps forward until he can smell Aiber's cologne and smiles very calmly, and very unkindly. "I am not a piece," he says. The words cut through the room and it sounds like proclamation of king, a mandate set down by royalty. Light Yagami is brilliant. He is the top student in Japan. He, if anyone, is the chess-master.

Aiber's expression goes tighter suddenly, nervous, and Light feels quite self-satisfied until he realizes Aiber's gaze is shot at something over his shoulder. He knows it's L, and that's using basic reasoning skills, even though it feels like some sort of odd sixth sense. Like the world only shifts back into focus when L is there, six feet and no more between them. Light turns to look at him and means to say something but doesn't.

_It's just a game_ , he thinks. _Play the game_. But his throat is lodged shut.

"Light," L says, so flatly that it doesn't sound like a word at first. He takes his steps forward slowly, like he might sink through the floor at any moment, and speaks very quickly so that the words rush together. "Fancy meeting you here. I hope you don't mind, but I need to physically restrain you to my person. And if you do mind, even then." He puts a hand out to take Light awkwardly by the arm when a few moments have passed and Light doesn't move. They're so used to just pulling one another along with the chain - a game of a tug-of-war in a secret language - that direct contact seems oddly impersonal, in a way. "Come along."

Only when Light finally begins to let himself be carted off by his captor does L appear to take notice of the third person in the room. "Aiber, get some sleep," he says, and it sounds very much like an order. "We can't have Coil looking haggard for Yotsuba tomorrow."

Aiber's smile slips several times, but he tries to put it back on. He really does look tired.

He taps the space under one of his eyes, then nods to L, who is nothing but dark circles. "Just trying to get in character," he says. In another situation, said in a very different voice, it might be teasing. It might be flirting.

Light follows L back into their room, seeing neither the hallways nor the elevator, the journey blinking past him in a flash. L's grip stays locked on his arm the whole time, a shackle binding them together as well as any chain, and Light has images dancing like pinpricks in the back of his mind of those hands wrapped around his shoulders, digging into his back, his hair, his face. L's grip has always been surprisingly strong, and Light can almost imagine it burns him now, branding a mark onto his skin through the material of his sleeve.

L is wearing one of his shirts and yesterday that would have been arousing and intimate and maybe a little thrilling, in some way that Light has to bury now in order to think straight. He's too thin, and it hangs on him like a sheet, but still looks better than his usual clothes. Light briefly fantasizes about dressing him, about putting him in nice, fitted suits and getting him a hair-cut, coifing him up the way that people ought to be if they want to be with Light. Making him a pretty little fake, like Misa, instead of the ugly liar that he is.

_Ugly_ , Light tells himself. L had been very ugly once and he tries to see it again - focuses on the too-wide eyes and sickly pale skin and the gaunt crookedness of his frame - but he can't. He remembers the jagged dips of L's back, shifting and arching under the skin as he'd ridden Light, forehead pressed to his temple and warm breath sifting out like steam, and he can't see it. Thinking of the sex at all, though, makes him angry, so that's at least something. It makes him feel gutless and hollow for a moment, but he quickly shifts it into a bubbling sheet of rage that pools under his skin and on his tongue as L leads him back into their room.

Time seems to slow as L slips the handcuffs back on, first on his own wrist, then turning to Light's. Light imagines jerking the chain out of his hands, grabbing it and grabbing him and just wrapping it around his neck - like a collar, like a noose - pulling him close and breathless, making him gag and choke and beg - with silent, breathless words - for mercy. He thinks these things sometimes: disgusting, vile, _bad_ things that titillate him the way nothing else can. Fantasies, dark and wrong and buried deep; not all of them involve L, but most do.

He doesn't act on them, doesn't ever, wouldn't dare. Instead, he waits until the handcuffs are fastened securely on both of them to grab L by the collar of his own shirt and throw him down on the bed, pinning him with the weight of his hips. It's a game, just a game, but Light doesn't want to play, is so _fucking tired_ of playing - the way Aiber is, the way L makes people. L is a horrible person who ruins things, who crawls his way in, down under your skin, so deep until you can't get him out. Light thought he could make him better, could help, but L is beyond saving.

Light feels sick.

" _'Sometimes,'_ " he says, in whisper-soft voice that he spits into L's ear, " _'I want to pretend that the only thing that's ever happened to me is you.'_ "

It's a taunt and L knows it, is a genius after all and can catch up even if he hadn't heard Light's conversation with Aiber, which is always a possibility. He doesn't look afraid, but he does look wary, but also sorry in a way that makes Light ache. _It's just a game, just a game, don't -_

"You knew what I was doing," L says, very quietly, staring up at him with those wide, ugly, horrible eyes. The circles look darker than usual.

Light feels sick.

 

\---

**tbc.**

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *throws hands up*
> 
> As you can see, I have given up on resisting the unexplainable desire to turn this first arc into a melodramatic workplace romance. Fear not, in a few chapters we'll get to the obsessively psychotic angst and murder. For now it's just a lot of hurt feelings, because who doesn't like to see Light drown in a pool of his own tears? (rhetorical question. let's face it, we all love the crazy fuck.) One of the great things about L/Light is that (if you follow the tried and true cliches the way I like to) you basically get to do two versions - the yotsuba lovefest of bed sharing and make-outs and general cuteness, and then the aftermath when Light inevitably regains his memories (and his status as a certified lunatic) and everything goes predictably to hell. We're in the former now. (I know, you probably couldn't tell, given all the psychosis already flying around - my good!Light isn't overly good, is he?) We'll get to the latter.
> 
> Things in this chapter that are unclear or otherwise don't make sense will hopefully be somewhat explained in the next chapter (i.e., the B stuff.) As is probably obvious at this point, the Beyond Birthday in this AU is very much alive. I have no good excuse for this except that I very much wanted to write him, so let's just assume that L didn't let his name and face end up on public record and leave it at that.
> 
> Thank you for reading and, especially, for kudos-ing/commenting. Thank you all, in general.


	5. forgive us our trespasses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because apparently I have some sort of narrative kink for fucking with the timeline, let me make a note of the fact that the first scene of this chapter does not follow the last scene of previous chapter and actually takes place between the third and fourth scenes of last chapter (aka, it's the missing phone call with B.) The second scene of this chapter, on the other hand, does return to our regularly scheduled programming.
> 
> /it should not be this complicated but it is, gah.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who is reading/commenting/passively glancing at this fic. It means the world.
> 
> (also, this chapter contains dub-con and minor violence. I've added it to the tags, but just so everyone knows.)

_"Lovers and madmen have such seething brains."_  
\- William Shakespeare, _A Midsummer Night's Dream_

 

\---

 

Light has been asleep for almost three hours when the call comes in, the sixth one that week.

L looks at the flares of the pale city light against his skin, slanting through the window to ripple across his body, painting him in stripes. He keeps his eyes locked calmly on Light's outline, muted as it is in the dark, as he does something very stupid and answers the phone. He tells Watari to get some sleep as he transfers the call over to his cell, and knows that he will, even though he is worried, even though he knows as well as L that this is very far from a good idea.

But L is not a child any longer and the world is full of bad people, many of which he has faced at one point or another. There is no reason for him to hide from the proverbial monster under his proverbial bed.

He deliberates over it for only a moment before fishing out the key and unlocking the chain, quickly slipping the cuff off of his wrist and wrapping it around the headboard, leaving plenty of slack for Light to sleep comfortably. He won't be long, and even if he is, it doesn't matter. Light's not a threat as he currently is - couldn't possibly be - and he repeats this to himself as he moves quietly across the room and out into the hallway, deftly shutting the door behind him and then leaning back against it, taking a heavy breath.

He uncurls his fingers from where they're clenched around the phone, trying to steady himself. He is not afraid. _He is not afraid._

"What do you want?" he says flatly into the receiver, bracing himself for the harsh, languorously mad giggle in response. He is not left long in waiting.

B's voice slips in like something smooth and dirty and terrifying in its familiarity. It's a voice L hears sometimes when he hasn't slept for days and days, when there is some puzzle that he is unable to solve. _What would Beyond do?_ he'll ask, and then detest himself for the urge. It's been months since they've spoken, and the last time had been so brief that L barely remembers it. He hadn't let himself stay on the line long enough to hear anything but the answer to his question, a _yes_ or a _no_.

 _"Do you know anything about Kira?"_ he'd asked. It had been a long shot - the longest of shots - but it had been early in the case and something about the way Kira killed, something about _names_ had pinged B sharply onto his radar. A long shot, but he'd tried.

_"Come to California. Come see me and I'll tell you."_

He'd remembered the taunt in that voice, the promise, from years and years ago. There is always a quality to B's voice that makes him sound as if he knows so many mysteries, knows the answers to all the questions that L asks himself quietly in the night. L has always, always hated him, but he's always let him speak. Even if the things he says are cruel and degrading and wrong, wrong, wrong. Especially then, maybe.

 _Fuck you_ , L had wanted to say, but instead he'd just hung up and not tried again. He'd assured himself that B hadn't known a thing, was just playing a game. B's always playing games. There's nothing he likes better.

He starts with one now. "What are you wearing?" he asks, breathing heavily over the line like a seasoned pervert. L wouldn't be surprised if he started licking the phone. It's a farce, of course, a joke at L's expense. That's one of the games they play: stalker and victim, villain and hero, bad guy and good guy. B performs all of his roles to a tee; L can barely navigate his.

He simply rolls his eyes at the current display. If there had ever been a point when sex could be used to make him nervous, it's long since passed. Overexposure tends to have that effect.

"What do you think?" he says dully. B knows what he wears and has worn every day for years and years now. He knows because, for many of those years, he'd worn the same.

The laugh on the other end of the line is only half-real and its familiarity is jarring.

" _Boring_ ," B says, like they're on a game show or something and L isn't performing adequately. He's always been like that, always loved a performance. "When did you get so boring, Law - "

L doesn't let him get further than that.

"B, don't," he snaps, letting the natural strain of authority bleed into his voice. "You don't use that name. Not on this line. Not ever."

He doesn't have time for this - Light could wake up at any moment and, although there's no particular security risk to that, it feels to L like something that shouldn't happen. He doesn't want him anywhere near his name, near B and everything that he knows.

L thinks, not for the first time, that he would have been better off just killing Beyond and being done with it.

"I was going to say _L_ ," B simpers, voice trilling over the line like a jingle.

L wonders if it's the same voice he uses on the orderlies to get phone privileges often enough to constantly hound Watari's answering machine. It's been a while, but he used to call all the time, like a school boy trying to get a date or something, always, _"L, what did you think of last month's conference on neuroscience?"_ or _"I've been considering the Oort cloud…"_ or _"I miss your tendons, I want to rip you tendons, please, please please, come and visit."_

B can play very charming and reasonable when he wants to - can play any role, though L's is his favorite - but he so rarely makes the effort, preferring to get what he wants through blunt force trauma and crawling mind games. Simple manipulation is beneath him. L thinks that if B ever met Kira, he'd probably look very much down on him - possibly almost as down as Light would look on him - but no, L's not going to think about that. L's not going to think about Light at all, because when he does he gets a pit in his stomach that aches and twists with every stray thought. It says something very bad about the state of his affairs if concentrating on B makes him feel even the slightest bit better.

He remembers a time when thinking about B made him want to curl up and decay slowly in the far corners of dusty, shadowed rooms. Remembers when he'd done just that.

"Don't call me that either," L says after a moment. "Use _Ryuzaki_." He knows that will garner no good response, but he says it anyway.

"Oh?" B hisses through the phone, and he sounds even tinnier than usual over the wires. A thin, metallic whisper. "Maybe you should call me Ryuzaki, too. You call me and I call you. If it goes on long enough, we might not know ourselves from each other." He giggles and it's absolutely mad. "It'd get awfully confusing, wouldn't it?"

"No," L says.

"It would for me," B says.

"Maybe you're not as sharp as you used to be. A place like that, it could rot your mind," L says.

 _L says, B says._ That's how all of their conversations go, back and forth, round and round - circular and never-ending and maddening. L sometimes wonders if B's plan all along has been to drive L just as insane as himself. He sometimes wonders if it's working.

"It's not so bad here, as it goes," B tells him, and he's lying, of course - US mental facilities are notoriously terrible, and L had made sure that the one that B was put into had a particularly brutal reputation - "apart from the food and the general sense of creeping desiccation. It's just that there's nothing to do. I've even been banned from art therapy."

"That's what happens when you put someone's eye out with a crayon," L says lightly, as if it's to be expected. And it is. "Yes, they contacted me about that."

B makes an annoyed, ruffled sound, and L would think he was waving a causal hand through the air if he didn't know that B is almost consistently either straightjacketed or at least handcuff to something. "It was a colored pencil," he says, "and he's allegedly going to make a full recovery so I don't know what all the fuss is about. People are always fussing about these sorts of things and I never know why."

Liar.

He'd learned how to lie from L. B had always known how to act, how to play pretend, but he'd learned how to lie by watching L, always watching L.

"You know why," L says softly. B has many, many faults, but not understanding things has never been one of them. "You just like to watch things - hurt."

He mean to say _die, watch things die,_ but he says _hurt_ instead and it rocks something wild and long buried inside of him. Apart from the general uselessness of it, speaking to B always makes him feel sick and weak, as if he's just come down with some awful, incurable sickness. Speaking to B makes him want to see B, and that's something he _cannot_ do.

"Why did you call, Beyond?" L says, trying to get this over with.

"There are patterns on my walls," B says, very quickly and quietly and not answering L's question at all. "I thought it was all white, but it's not. _There are patterns_ ," he repeats, insistent, like he suddenly needs to make L understand something. "I can see your face, the shapes of your eyes. I can see you in everything. You follow me." The rasps are mounting. "You think I follow you, but it's the other way around. You follow me, L."

L feels sick. He wants to hang up, but he doesn't want to go back into a world where he'll be chained to Light Yagami and B will keep calling - stuck between a rock and hard place. He doesn't want to be in this world, on this case. He thinks about England, about the small flat he sometimes rents in London - not on Baker Street, though he'd had Watari try for the sake of symbolism - tucked into a little corner where no one would think to look. He wants to run away, in some quiet, inexpressible way that he will never, ever act on. He wants to run.

"Why did you call?" he repeats softly, too softly and not at all in the stern, no-nonsense tone he means to use. "You wouldn't tell me a thing before. What's so important now?"

His head is still pressed against the door and for a moment he thinks he hears a noise from behind it, a clink of metal shifting against metal - _no, no_ \- but it stops as soon as it starts and he lets his breath out, listens to the words that are filtering, static and messy, over the line.

"You wouldn't come in person," B tell him, like he's forgotten. "I would have told you what you wanted to know if you'd only come in person. I still would now." He sounds for half a second like the six-year-old boy that L met all those years ago on a sharp, bright winter morning - that boy, small and desperate and frail in an almost unreal sort of way. _"A little monster,"_ Roger had said to Watari, under his breath. L had heard him anyway. So had B, probably.

 _"Nonsense,"_ Watari had replied. L remembers watching the frost gather on his mustache and thinking it must be very inconvenient to be grown up. _"He's brilliant."_

L had decided some years ago - in the very late hours of the night, on one case or another that he could have solved with his head cut off - that all the most important events in his life have happened in winter. He'd been brought to Wammy's in the winter and B had come a few years after, during one particularly cold February. The bells, too, during the snowstorm.

He'd first started investigating Light Yagami last December.

And no, he's not thinking about that - 

Except that he is. He always is.

"It doesn't matter anymore," L says, after too long a pause. "I don't need your help, and I doubt that I ever did." He can hear Aiber down the hall, humming a French pop song to himself. He hopes he doesn't come this way, and resolves to fire him or something if he does. "I'm almost through with the case, anyway."

B does something that sounds suspiciously like biting the phone, rattling the speakers with a hysterical chomping noise and an even more hysterical laugh. "Caught Kira, huh? I'm surprised it's taken you so long. You'd have caught him faster if you'd have only come." He laughs again. "I could have told you. I can still tell you."

No. He's lying, he's lying, he's -

"Come on. Come, come, come. I promise it's good. It's brilliant. Lawl -"

"B," L snaps, cutting the word in half, not letting him finish. He'll have to be put down if he says L's real name and they both know it. B is not worth the risk, not at a time like this. Light doesn't know about him, about one of the few people alive who knows L's real name, and L doesn't intend to let him find out. "I'm hanging up," he says. "Don't call again. I won't answer."

He will find out, though. Not now, maybe, but he'll have to remember himself at some point. Remember Kira. And when then happens, it's only a matter of time -

"Yes you will," B says, the laugh still strung through his voice.

L jabs his finger so hard in the _end call_ button that it will probably bruise.

He takes a long breath, firming up his resolve. If B does anything that is not completely horrible, it's this, the perspective. He reminds L, in some ways, who he is and what he is here for. What he needs to do. And L needs to do it _now_ , has been putting it off for too long, and for what? Because he doesn't want this to end? Everything ends, and most things badly. Best case scenario, he gets out of this situation alive. In that case, Light's chances of survival are minimal. He has to face that, to be okay with that.

He stands very slowly, phone clutched rigidly between his fingers, and turns back to the door, bracing himself to go in and fuck Kira.

 

\---

 

**two hours later.**

 

\---

 

He feels liquid and hazy when Light presses him to the bed, flattening him like a rag doll, a weak thing incapable of controlling its own movements. "You knew what I was doing," L repeats, even though he doesn't want to. His thighs still ache from the earlier fucking and his throat is dried sharply from the alcohol. Light smells very good.

"Shut up," he says.

"You know what this is. It's a criminal investigation," L continues, unfazed.

"L, shut up." His hands are on L's throat then, but L doesn't shut up.

"You're a murderer," he says, then pauses. "Probably." He trips over the word somewhat, feeling at once very pathetic and like Light is far more pathetic than he could ever be. He opens his eyes, staring up at that pretty face, skin gold in the dim lamplight and flushed with a lovely sort of hurt. Light looks beautiful even when about to choke him. L puts his hand up, ghosting his fingers against Light's cheek like he wants to touch it, but can't quite make himself. Light's grip loosens on his neck.

"If it helps," L says, leaning up to whisper in his ear, but ending closer to the dent between his neck and jaw, "I do like you better than most of them."

Light shudders slightly against him, body going taut and fragile where it presses to L's chest, thighs wrapping his hips in an airtight, bruising hold and for a moment L thinks that Light really is going to choke him, just kill him here and now and forgo all the needless drama of their regard for one another. Abruptly, though, Light lets go, hands loosening so quickly, like L is a germ he wants to wash himself clean of.

Then he hauls back and punches L in the face.

L doesn't often watch movies, and when he does it's always either case research - as it had been for the Hollywood serial stranglings a few years back - or old detective noir - Hitchcock and The Thin Man the like - but one of the multitudes of discrepancies, he's noticed, between reality and film, is the punch to the face. In films, it's treated like a tap, a minor scrape, a small set-back; reality is not so generous. When punched right, and punched hard, it hurts tremendously, ricocheting through the facial bones and causing a heady, jarring nausea to rise in the temples. L has been punched in the face many, many times in his line of work and, on the list of physical impairments he has been subjected to at one time or another, it perhaps ranks fairly low, but that still does not make it something particularly enjoyable to experience while lying in bed with a handsome 18-year-old boy in his lap.

Especially when said boy is the one inflicting the injury.

After he hits him, Light just balances there, breathing heavily and looking somewhat surprised, and somewhat expectant. L's cheekbone throbs.

"Are you - quite done?" he says after a moment. He slurs the words slightly and winces more at that than the punch itself. This is really, really not his night. Though, from the look on Light's face, it's no one's.

He leans forward, brow quirked prettily - and he looks so young that it might be sweet if L's mind wasn't fuzzy with alcohol and the vestiges of sharp pain - and... sniffs him.

"Are you _drunk_?" he says, sounding more aghast than he might if L had murdered a bus full of schoolchildren. Light Yagami is, of course, far too responsible to drink, even with friends, and certainly not near heavily enough to impair his speech.

L rolls his eyes. "Tipsy," he corrects.

L thinks Light might hit him again, and has half a mind to hit him back, because really, there's only so much he can be expected to put up with. There had been a man once, a truly awful man - ringleader of a sex trade racket in Eastern Europe - who had beaten L so badly the one time that they'd fucked that he'd been in the hospital for the next few days, but it had gotten him what he'd needed. He'd figured out the weaknesses, which pressure points to hit, and he'd hit them all, taking down the whole operation. The man is still in the Belorussian prison where L had left him.

He's reminded of that encounter, just for a second - the silver rings and the silk sheets and the faintly humorous face the man would make when he came, jaw grit and eyes rolled back, funny in the way that things are instead of just being ugly. L doesn't remember his name.

But Light doesn't hit him again, doesn't lay a hand on him, and the difference is what really makes the damning impression. Light's head tilts slightly and he does something that, for all his precise calculations, L had not foreseen.

He laughs.

It is not a Light laugh, neither dignified nor put-on nor stifled behind a hand. It is loud and uproarious, an Aiber sort of laugh - if he has to put a name to it - head dipping back, body rocking over L's with the pangs of his amusement.

L just watches him, not knowing how to react and half-waiting for it to abruptly cut off and reveal some sort of hidden, disastrous plan, but - it doesn't. In fact, it seems quite genuine. L just keeps watching. Light is normally beautiful, but now he is very, very beautiful. He looks like a child, like a _person_ , even - if that's the word L wants - careless in his humanity, an unstudied picture of amusement.

"Tipsy," he repeats back to L, like he can't quite wrap his mind around it. L watches the expression shift on his face, shrinking until the smile is only a dry reflection of what it had been a moment ago, sobered now with something sharp and sad. One of his hands comes up, abruptly, to cup the side of L's face, fingers curling lightly against the place where he'd hit him only a moment before. L wonders if he'll bruise, wonders if Light would like him to.

He feels a warm forehead against his own then, and a ghost of breath fluttering over his skin in feathered waves.

"Do you care about me at all?" Light asks quietly, smile completely gone now. He looks very aware, and very small.

 _Careful_ , L thinks, because Light has played this card before, is taking every opportunity to sell himself as the heartbroken victim in the situation, either the vilify L or to justify it to himself. L's not sure which, but it doesn't matter either way. As long as L doesn't tell the truth, as long as he doesn't show skin, show his weak points, it should be alright.

"Does it matter?" he whispers into Light's hair. It tickles his cheek, smells like sweat and conditioner. It's unsettling in its familiarity, almost a comfort to the senses. "If you are Kira, then I'll have to stop you, probably kill you. And if you're not, then you and I will never see one another again after it's proven."

He says it dully, like he's listing off unimportant facts that might be of interest, like he doesn't care at all. And that's the point, isn't it? To make Light care, but for L not care about him. That's always the plan - make them _care_. Not in some cushy romance-novel way where L becomes the redeeming force in the life of a hardened criminal, makes them see the error of their ways - that's completely unrealistic, and fairly dull besides. No, it's not about changing them - his suspects, _his_ victims, in a way - it's about shifting their world just the slightest bit, about inserting himself as a variable that was never accounted for, and never could be. The police? Of course. A great, world-renowned detective? If the crime rates high enough, it's to be expected. But a skinny, pathetic man in beat-up sneakers and heavy eyes who is _there_ suddenly, who is a factor? No matter if they hate him, no matter if they beat him senseless, he always has some effect.

Some do care - Aiber; a woman in the tropics with a two-year-old daughter who had been terribly fond of L; a boy on the streets of New York City who'd sworn until the end that they were best friends - some care in the way that could maybe fit into a pretty love story, somehow. L just hopes like hell that Light isn't one of them, because _Kira is different_.

"I'm not - " Light starts, perfunctorily - denying, denying, always denying - but he doesn't sound like he believes it and L doesn't let him finish.

"Just because you don't remember - " he begins, sitting up so that Light's rocked slightly in his lap. Those fine, golden hands go to his shoulders, digging in deep and L wishes it was one of those times when he didn't have to go for the guts, because otherwise they could just kiss now, press close and let their bodies fight it out, instead of their minds.

But they've been using their weaker weapons for too long, so when Light grabs him by the hair and grits, " _Shut up_ about my memories," L doesn't shove him off the way he should. "Shut up, okay. Just shut up. I wish you wouldn't speak. I wish you would never speak." He's talking fast, almost to himself, and his breath is a warm whistle in L's ear. "I could just fuck you," he says, and no, no, not this again, they can't keep doing this, "just fuck you over and over again and you would never speak and it would be _perfect._ "

They're supposed to be making progress and this is _not progress_ and Light is shoving his shirt up, fingers rough on his skin and hips digging in and _fuck_ , once had been enough, hadn't it? Why can't once be enough?

"Light," L gasps, shoving him off with something nearing full power, and Light trips up a bit, but he regains his balance easily, bearing down on L again like some kind of unpalatable god looking for its sacrifice, for its due. And L is on the alter, L has put himself on the alter, and Kira is claiming something that isn't really his to claim.

It's just a game, right?

"What?" Light nearly moans against his jaw, fingers tearing roughly at the buttons of his borrowed shirt, trying to strip L as quickly as possible. It isn't at all like last time. "Don't pretend - " he says, seemingly struggling with his actions, and there's a flash of guilt across his face, but he shoves it down. " _You_ came to me." L's not sure if he's talking about earlier tonight or the first time they'd kissed or maybe the first time they'd met, way back at commencement, the beginning of the game. A necessary sacrifice. "You wanted it," Light growls at him. "Don't you want to solve the case, L?"

"Ryu - " L starts to bite back, correcting because it's the only thing he can really think to do, but Light cuts him off with a kiss, teeth digging into his lips and tongue jamming into his mouth.

Everything moves very slowly, or else very quickly, and L half-wonders - in the back of his mind, in the small, secret place where one thinks about these sorts of things - if Light will rape him. If, should L fight and keep fighting just a little bit, but not hard enough to truly stop him, if Light will go through with it.

Maybe it would be interesting to find out, maybe it would give him a lot of useful information on the state of Kira's mind, on the reality of his morals. It would hurt, of course, would fuck things up right good, but it might be interesting. And if it's interesting, if it's for the cause, then L should do it, right? _Anything for justice_ , Watari had said.

"Isn't this the _only way_ to solve the case?" Light is gasping into his ear, a bitter whirlwind of torrid, mind-sparking words. "Surely good old fashioned deductive work can't be the answer. No, it has to be sex. It's just the case, right?"

 _Just the case_ , L thinks, agreeing. Just a necessary sacrifice.

"It's just a game," Light gasps, practically humping L now in a desperate fervor of something like arousal-stricken self-loathing. He sounds really terrible, sounds gutted, sounds _sad_.

And L thinks that he doesn't want him to be sad. L thinks, _fuck necessary sacrifices._

He shoves Light back just enough to yank back his arm, gathering power, and slams his fist into Light's pretty face. _An eye for an eye, my friend._ He doesn't want Light to be sad, but he does want to hurt him. L is tired of ripping himself open and showing his seams. L wants to rip someone else.

Light is knocked back and L follows him, switching their positions with a trembling ease, landing them diagonally across the bed with several limbs hanging out over open air and more than a few bitten-off _fuck_ s and _what_ s between them. Light falls like a mannequin, like he's been waiting for this, waiting for so long for L to turn the tables, take the wheel, pull the rug out - choose your favorite euphemism for _control_. L is sure that he's supposed to be in control, and the realization that he hasn't been for quite some time rocks through him like a blow to the gut.

He shoves Light's arms back above his head, kicking his legs apart to kneel between them.

"Fine," he grits against Light's lips, not quite sure what he's agreeing to. "Fine."

"What are you doing?" Light gasps back, because L has always played it quiet, always given himself up instead of taking, because that is how the game is played. That is what L has always done and would do, if he had any sense left at the moment. "That's not playing fair."

L knows he's right, but decides then and there that, despite his pretensions otherwise, he _hates_ the game. He is tired. He is 24 years old and he is tired of everything that he has ever been.

"When have you ever known me to do that?" he asks, pressing in so close he's sure that he'll choke the air right out of Light. Maybe he'd liked that, maybe they'd both just love that so well. It's the right thing to do, in the grand scheme, putting an end to Kira here and now. But L doesn't want an end to Kira and doesn't think he truly ever has.

He slides the sweatpants easily off of Light's hips, holding his chest down with one hand and stripping him with the other. Light tries, weakly, to shove him off, but his heart's not in it, and L barely has to exert any effort to keep him still as he reaches over to the nightstand, shoving the drawer open with a rough grab and pulling out the bare necessities. The plastic of the condom wrapper makes a soft sound when it hits the bed and Light winces beneath him. He looks terrified, staring up at L with eyes wide enough to match his own, but he's stopped fighting.

L doesn't even have to hold him down when his fingers slip inside, when Light's jaw grits and he makes a pained animal sound, like a dying beast, one hand digging half-moon circles into L's arm. It's his first time this way, L's sure, and some other night he would be gentle, would be kind in a way that he can drudge out of himself when he needs to. He would put on a perfect show. This night, however, his fingers move too quickly and his eyes are hard with something that jags in him like hate, like disgust, and when he shoves inside - body balanced and quivering over Light with the effort of holding himself up - he doesn't even meets his gaze, doesn't even glance at his face. He buries himself in Light's body, shoves his forehead against the tense arc of his shoulder, eye's shut tight and jaw clamped down on itself.

Light groans like he's been shot and it's not gentle and it's not kind and it's nothing really, a terrible, mind-splitting moment that L is going to blot out later, the way he does with the parts of himself that he doesn't want to look at.

He suspects Light will hate him after this and prays to a god that he doesn't believe in that he will, because that would make this all so easy. Kira can be the good guy, the hero to his own cause, and L will be the villain, the big bad wolf, stealing innocence and breaking things - hearts, minds, pretty little teenage bodies - and that will make everything easy. He can imagine the taskforce's reaction, the look on the chief's face, the look on Light's. _Look what he did to me_ , he'd say, undoing his belt, showing them the bruises on his hips. _Look what the great detective L did to me._

And L would let him. L would keep his clothes on - not show them the purple fingermarks across his chest, the healing indentations of teeth on his thigh where Light had drawn blood - and wouldn't say a word. Kira could get off the chain, could go free. Kira could destroy the world and at this point, shaking and blinded and on the edge of orgasm, L thinks he could let him.

He comes with a muffled grunt against Light's neck.

Light doesn't come at all, but he's harder than L had expected him to be, pressed between their stomachs. L lies there breathing heavily, pathetically, on top of him, limbs frozen and afraid to move. Afraid to look Light in the eyes.

After a moment, he feels a hand in his hair, stroking and calming him the way nothing ever has before.

Since his early childhood, L has cried only once that he can remember. Watari had watched him, not saying a word, and had held Roger back when he had made a move to do something. B had followed him to his room, pockets full of wet pebbles from the stream that still flows through Wammy's grounds and thrown rocks at him until he'd stopped. L recalls that day with perfect clarity. He'd shoved B out of a second story window and hadn't gotten in trouble. B had just been sent to his room with the nurse and told not to bother L.

L doesn't cry now, but he thinks he feels the way that people do when they're about to. Like there's something thick and horrible lodged in him and he's going to be violently ill.

Light's hand is so gentle against his scalp, and his voice is a quiet hiss of brokenness disguising itself as amusement when he says, "I always knew that submissive sweetheart thing was an act."

L doesn't move. He wishes Light would yell at him, would hit him, would give him more bruises. They could bruise each other, bleed each other, until it would all wash away, until L could feel things for Light other than the things he feels now - the thick, welling, grateful things that skate through his veins like an infection.

"One you fell for easily," he replies against Light's neck, but the words don't come out half as cruel or false as he means them to. Light just keeps stroking his hair.

 

\---

 

Light is in pain, but it's a distant sort of pain, a quiet ache where L is still locked inside of him, chest rising and falling against his own. His back is sloped in a thin arch like some deformed little god of skin and bone and his wild black hair tickles softly along Light's jaw. It's almost funny - in a slightly unbelievable way, because he had been so _angry_ when they'd first touched - but he feels like the strong one now. He had fucked L an hour or so earlier and it had made him weak, taken his control and covered up his eyes, dizzying him with the ruinous sort of affection that takes over lives. But L had just thrown him down and done it back to him, rough and unforgiving and without a trace of kindness, and Light now feels like the one with the power.

And he's never actually done this before with anyone else, this whole sex thing, but he's well-educated and in no way naive, and he thinks he's pretty sure that this isn't how it's supposed to work. He should hate L for the way he's treated him, the manipulation, the blunt force, the _carelessness._

But L does care, he must, because he looks terrified right now, slumped as he is across Light's body. And if Light has learned anything from him in these past few months, it's terror - the creeping, constant fear of losing himself in another person's hands and mouth and flat black eyes.

So, when L says, "One you fell for easily," in that helpless little voice that's trying to be strong, puffing the words out against Light's warm skin so that his breath tingles through him, making him roll his eyes with the sort of honest fondness that doesn't belong in this situation, he tries his best to sound at least minimally upset.

"I didn't fall for anything," he murmurs, fingers still carding through L's hair. "I played into it. Was I supposed to turn down having you spread out on your back and begging?"

L sits up then, and his hair flops into his eyes like a sheet, worn muscles shifting hypnotically under his skin. "It would have been the moral thing to do," he says, voice flat and empty. Light wants to kiss him, but stops himself, snorting instead.

"Where do you get off talking about morality?" he asks, looking down at the state of the two of them.

L has just fucked him, had barely even given him time to consent, and all logic tells Light that he should be seething about this, humiliated and angry, but he can't even locate the edge of the emotion in himself. He knows that even if L had given him days to deliberate over it, he would have said yes, would have given himself up for the taking. It's disgusting in its way, but Light is still hard and riding the high of some turbulent, beautiful feeling that lives deep within him.

L, for his part, has the decency to look suitably guilty, even as he grits his jaw and says, "I get off right here with you, thank you." He looks even guiltier after he says it.

Light brings a hand up to cup his face and L flinches as if he's been slapped, ducking out of reach. He rolls off of Light, slumping off to the side and pulling his bare legs up to his chest, naked but for the shirt of Light's that hangs half off his shoulders. Light reaches for him again, and this time L doesn't move in time, and thus ends up with a hand back in his hair and Light's tongue licking along the seam of his lips. 

Light wants to fuck him again. It's only fair. Back and forth, trading places, over and over again; maybe they'll do this for the rest of forever, just fuck each other into oblivion until there's no such thing as the Kira case or the brilliant detective L.

L doesn't seem interested in this course of action, though, and shoves him away again, head shaking.

"I may not follow the prescribed rules for what is socially and lawfully acceptable," he says, picking up the thread of their pointless exchange, probably just for something to do, "which is a luxury of being L, but I understand them. And I understand when someone is hypocritically pretending to abide by them, while secretly plotting to kill their sexual partner."

Light feels something jolt inside of him, but he tries to shove the sickness down. Not this, _not this_ , not again. He doesn't want to play the game, he is exhausted and he doesn't give a _fuck_ about Kira, just wants to pin L down and fill him up, fill his mouth so he can't talk about the case or Kira or basic logic or all the other reasons why this will never, ever work out.

"Oh my god," he says, "can we _not_ right now? You're more of a criminal than I could ever be." The words are not gentle, but he tries to keep his tone as non-threatening as possible, because L looks like some cornered zoological exhibit, backed to the edge of his cage, trying to duck out of sight of prying eyes. _An animal_ , Light thinks, vaguely. For all his brilliance, for all the humanity that gives him his pride and his shame and his fantastic mind, he is just an animal. Collared, but wild still.

"That's an argument of moral subjectivity," L says, leaning unsubtly out of Light's reach, "not of guilt."

"L," Light sighs, because he doesn't want to talk about this. His thighs still ache from moments ago - when L had been _inside_ him - and he's still slightly hard, and tired and confused, and wouldn't even mind using his hand to get himself off if afterwards he could wrap his fingers in L's hair and press his lips to his temple and keep his long, wild limbs locked close and quiet. Light wants to sleep and L, he thinks, _needs_ to.

L stands, stepping off the bed and onto shaky legs, slumping there in Light's shirt and facing the door like it's some far away escape he'll never reach. Light thinks he's being a bit overdramatic and jangles the chain slightly to remind him of the situation.

"L," he says again.

"The fact is," L says, not turning to face Light, just letting the quiet sounds of his words muffle their way through the air, "you _are_ Kira. Even if you don't know it now, you _were_. And I fully believe that you were the original, that you were the one in control."

He says it mechanically, like he's reading off lines, like it's just a speech that someone wrote for him and Light half expects for his to pop one of those quiet smiles into his voice and declare that it's all a joke. He doesn't. He stands there, back to Light, looking half-dead and half-dying. Light wants to stand up, wants to go behind him and kiss his neck and whisper calming things into his ears until he goes loose and pliant and stops talking, stop saying these horrible things.

Instead, he just uses the slack from the chain to pull L around by his arm so that they're facing one another again, and asks the question that's been burning through him since the start. 

"Why?" he starts, then rephrases. "Or, no, _how?_ How could you think that of me? _Me_ , L. You know me."

It's like talking to a brick wall, to a computer screen - great, big monogram L staring back at him. Sometimes Light thinks L acts more like a letter than a human being.

And the truth is that L does know him, better than anyone. It's horribly cliche, Light's sure, the things that he's saying and doing and feeling. He is just another lovestruck kid in a world of lovestruck kids, isn't he? A pathetic, meaningless exercise in human weakness. Intellectually, he knows this, but the worst part is that he can't even be bothered to care. What he feels for L, whatever it is - and he loathes to put a name to it, because what he chooses will only cement the cliche - but whatever it is, it dwarfs everything else.

L could accuse him of anything and Light would let them string him up for it, because it's L.

 _Sometimes I want to pretend the only thing that's ever happened to me is you._ It's a lie, and L is such a liar, but Light doesn't care.

"Yes, Light. I know you," L agrees, almost solemn in his dull, emotionless way. "I know what you're capable of. I know that you're brilliant, and tenacious, and egotistical to a fault." He stands there before Light and it's almost like he's delivering a sentence. Light meets his eyes and doesn't waver. After a moment, L does. He looks at his feet, bare as always and likely cold, toes twitching in the thin night air. "I don't know why you always take accusations of being Kira as insults," he murmurs. "It's the highest compliment I could serve you."

Light feels vaguely like he's going to choke on his own throat. He'd asked the question, but he doesn't want the answer, not really. He doesn't want to hear this.

L continues anyway. "Very, very few people are on my level," he says. "Kira is one of them."

Quite suddenly, Light finds himself standing, too. " _I'm_ one of them," he snaps, instantly ready to take his mounting irritation out on L.

Why can't things ever be easy? Light used to hate easy, despise it with a quiet vehemence, because it was _everywhere_. Everything had been far too easy, until he'd met L. Now it's so difficult he's not even sure he can navigate it, which is as unfamiliar a feeling as any that L has introduced him to.

"If you're Kira," L replies, maddeningly, still talking to his feet, "then yes, you are." His thick eyes jag up then, and the look in them is sharp and uncomfortable. "On the off-chance that you're not, then no, you're just a very intelligent boy, but you're not on _my_ level."

Light knows that they've been through it all tonight, but in that moment, he really, really wants to start throwing punches again.

He tries to calm himself down, tries to amuse himself out of it. "And I'm the egotistical one?" he snorts.

L doesn't reply, doesn't meet his faked smile and Light's fists clench. He stands there, facing L head on, but instead of hitting him his hands just come up to massage his own temples. He's working on too little sleep and too much aggression, and _fuck_ , he is really sore.

L watches him, calmly, and Light breathes out a long slow breath, shaking his head, as he says, "How could you want a murderer like Kira on your level? How could you feel a connection with him?" He tries to keep his voice flat.

Then L steps forward, awfully close, closer to him than either of them really wants to be to the other at this point, and says something that Light thinks he will remember for years. It is a speech, and it is horrible and Light rather hates him for it, but he thinks he'll remember it all the same.

L cocks his head, hair flopping into his face, and says:

"Light, being a murderer is how you get on my level. It's how you even qualify." He speaks quickly and quietly, not wasting time on emphasis or facial expression. "Genius alone isn't enough. Being L is a dirty job, and you don't come away from it with clean hands. You don't come away from it at all, in fact." He looks at the window behind Light. "I will live and die as a force of justice, I will serve my purpose and solve crimes and put criminals away. I will save the people that I can, and I will kill, and torture, and lie, and manipulate, and fuck when I have to. That's just my job."

He cocks his head to the other side, finger coming up to his lip. Light just stands there for several moments, unsure of how to respond, even though he knows exactly what the right words are.

After a long pause, he asks, not half as angrily as he means to, "Then what is the difference between you and Kira?" He just sounds tired to his own ears, as tired as L looks.

L's eyes swirl around facetiously, as if he's never even considered the question, even though Light's sure he's spent plenty of time doing just that.

"The difference?" he says. "I was here first. And I don't have magic powers. He's cheating, really, if you think about it in that way."

They stand there for a long moment and the L blinks, like he's reset or something and he looks down at himself and then back at Light, both of them barely clothed and thoroughly wrecked.

"Bastard," Light says, for lack of any better way to express how he's feeling.

"Are you alright?" L asks suddenly, ignoring the insult, like it's just occurred to him to ask. "You're not bleeding, are you? I can clean you up, if you like." He lifts his hand like he's going to touch Light, then pauses in midair and quickly drops it again.

Light supposes he's got plenty of experience cleaning up after a night of violent sex. _Whore_ , he thinks, though not in a particularly reproachful way, as if he's testing the insult out in his mind, feeling it roll around on the edge of his tongue, wondering how it might taste to spit into L's face one of these nights - after, or during. He shakes it off, deciding he doesn't like it. There's no real point to calling names when he knows they won't have any effect.

L reaches for him again and Light knocks his hand away.

"I'm fine," he says, then quickly changes his mind, grabbing L by the wrist and pulling him close. L slumps his head down against Light's shoulder, more or less collapsing into him. In truth, he's probably the taller of the two, but he makes himself small and fragile for his job. He's just so, so good at his job. "I want to hurt you," Light tells him, although he doesn't know why. He won't do it.

"Go ahead," L mumbles into the curve of his neck, warm lips dragging ticklish patterns on Light's throat.

"No," Light says, sitting back down on the edge of the bed. "I shouldn't want it." L goes down with him and Light's not sure, when he says _it_ , what he's really referring to. This, maybe. L, down on his knees, leaning between Light's legs to breath gentle sighs onto his hipbones.

"Yes, you should," L says, not looking up at him. He speaks to Light's middle, to the muscles that are just toned enough, the jut of the erection that he's been slowly losing. It will be morning soon. "You know where you stand, Light, and you know where I stand. You hurt me, I hurt you - rinse, repeat." He presses a kiss to Light's thigh. "It's as it should be. It's the detective story of the century."

"Or the love story," Light says to the top of L's head, before he can stop himself. The light is grey when it hits them with dipping shadows.

L shakes his head, still not looking up. "Detective story, Light. It has to be that." He kisses the other thigh. He's completely forgone the honorific by now.

"I lo - " Light starts, but he cuts off when L jerks so hard on the chain that they might both topple over.

"No, Light," L says, standing quickly. 

He keeps saying his name, over and over. _Light_. Not Light-kun, not Kira, not anything but what he is. Light Yagami, 18 years old. Japan's top student. Brilliant. 

"No," L repeats. He turns away, dragging Light after him, who goes with little protest. "It's almost six. We should shower."

Usually, a comment to that effect would lead to one of them behind the curtain and the other waiting in the bathroom, L on his laptop or Light flossing vigorously, but today they just stumble in together. L forgets to take his shirt off and so Light has to yank it off for him, letting it hang on the chain between them as the water falls in thick droplets, weighing them down and into one another. Halfway through soaping himself, L abruptly drops to his knees and sucks Light off, his usually teasing mouth giving all and asking for nothing today, maybe as a sort of apology for the half-aborted pleasure from the sex before. When he's done, when Light comes gasping against L, fingers digging deep into his scalp, wrenching his head close and unforgiving, Light drops weakly down onto the shower floor beside him, and they spend the rest of the morning there, pruning quietly as the water gets cooler and the sun rises higher.

 

\---

 

They spend the next few days making up for all the time wasted outside of each other by fucking as often as possible.

By the end of the week, it's more routine than anything else as they fall back from one another, Light rolling off of L to collapse breathlessly on the carpet beside him, rumpling several documents and getting his foot caught in one of the computer wires as he goes. They've done most of the past few days' research in their room instead of down in the main office with the rest of the team, growing farther away from everyone else as they grow closer to each other.

L's not actually sure that _close_ is the right word. Physically, yes, but they don't speak often, and if they do it's never with regard to anything of importance. Thrown together in an ecstasy of unhappiness, they are counting down the days within one another, with harsh breaths and rough hands and quiet in-jokes that no one else could properly appreciate. This will all end soon, and even though Light acts as if they're going to be an unstoppable detective team for the rest of forever, L knows that he knows that the truth is not so simple.

But for now, they do what they do best, and pretend.

Light is cleaning himself up when the knock comes, and freezes with his fingers on a shirt button, shooting L a slightly panicked look.

"Watari?" L calls, because it's rare for anyone else to ever come by the room.

The man who sticks his head in the door then, flashing a wide-mouthed grin at the two of them sprawled across the day's paperwork, is not, in fact, Watari. "Sorry to disappoint," Aiber says, sounding as far from sorry as one possibly can. He looks brighter than he had the other night and L assumes he's either drunk or on his way there. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

Light stands quickly, the flush of exertion morphing into one of embarrassment as he tuns around to do up his khaki's. "Of course not," he practically sneers over his shoulder.

L finds it slightly endearing.

"You are," he tells Aiber from his slump on the floor. The carpet is warm and rough on the back of his neck and he's more than a little annoyed that he won't be able to proceed with his previously formulated plan of lazily tracing patterns on Light's bare, sex-warm skin as he reads yesterday's Yotsuba report. "What is it, Aiber?"

Aiber smirks down at L with his languorous eyes, not being at all subtle as they trace the contours of L's bare stomach. "Your girl's back, Yagami," he says, without glancing at Light, who is now staring fixedly into the mirror, trying to right his hair. "And with quite a story, too."

Ah, that's decent news, at least. Misa had slipped Mogi's watch a few hours previous, so it's at least slightly comforting to know that she hasn't gone off on a killing spree, or else to make more awful commercials. L's offered to get her a better agent - half to keep a closer eye on her, half because her current representation has no business sense at all - but she'd just told him that he has terrible hair and that she never takes advice from people with terrible hair. He'd let it go after that.

"And she sent _you_ up?" Light says, not a little scathingly, as he adjusts his collar. Not even two minutes and already he's picture perfect again.

Aiber leans casually against the doorframe as if this is his room and they're the ones intruding, eyes smirking their way up and down Light's outline.

"I volunteered," he says, shooting his glance back to L. "You know me. Always willing to lend a helping hand."

The leer melts warmly across his face, not wavering when L says, "So I recall," about as flatly as he would when reminded of last week's weather.

He assures Aiber that they'll be down in a few minutes - the need to re-dress themselves going unspoken but not unnoticed - but he doesn't actually leave until Light walks over and slams the door in his face with an infinitely polite smile that drops off of his face as soon as he turns back to L.

"He's useless," Light says, voice going peculiarly childish as he walks over to stand above L, looming like a great, golden statue and dragging him onto his feet with the chain. "Come on, you need to clean up." He pulls him into the bathroom, hands L some tissue and then, as naturally as if it were his own, begins to straighten out L's hair. It takes Light a few moments, so absorbed as he is in this insurmountable task, to notice that L is staring at him. 

"What?" he says.

L wants to reach out a hand, wants to trace his jaw, wants to lie back down on the floor with him and stay there for days, but he does none of those things. He's afraid he's being terribly sentimental, and at any other time he'd look down on himself for it, but today, for some reason, it feels justified. Necessary, even.

"You are very dear to me, Light-kun," he says, leaning forward so that their foreheads are almost touching, but for the way that L's slump keeps him an inch or so lower.

Light looks ardently surprised for less than a second before he arranges his expression into one of vague interest. "Ha," he says, but it's forced, and he doesn't much pretend that it isn't.

"What?" L asks, but he knows what. Of course he knows.

Light's eyelashes flatten against his cheeks, and it's short - it's a momentary flash of nothing in particular - but it makes something twist itself thickly in L's chest and he has to shove the feeling to the back of himself in order to keep from saying the things that he truly wants to say.

Light opens his eyes then, smile aligning itself back on his face. "Oh, nothing," he half-laughs. "Just, if it had come from anyone else, I'd be insulted by such a pathetic confession." He takes the initiative that L won't touch and drags the back of his hand along L's cheek, a quiet, owning gesture. L has to steel himself not to lean into it too desperately. "From you, though, it's practically a proposal." The amused quirk of Light's eyes is completely genuine.

He's not lying. L's known it for weeks now, has figured that whatever bit of Kira is in him - and it _is_ in him - is hiding deep for now, buried farther than even Light can reach. He is not lying and none of this has been a lie, not really. That should be comforting, but it isn't.

_This will all go away soon._

"It's not," he says, tone more teasing than he means it to be.

"And thank god for that," Light laughs, taking the tissues from L's hands because he's going too slow, and reaching down between his legs to clean him up himself. It's a strangely casual gesture, for how intimate it should be. "My father will put up with a lot," he says, holding up his wrist to shake the chain as an example, "but he's going to draw the line somewhere."

L conjures up a brief image of the look of abject horror that would appear on the chief's face if L were ever to go to him and announce that he means to elope off to England with his only son. It is at once amusing and terrifying. And a bit sad, in its way, because L is not the life that Light is meant to have and, furthermore, surely not the life that he should want. But, behind all the jokes and teasing and pretenses of only casual regard, he truly does seem to want it. There's a part of L that rather wants it, too, but he puts that part in a drawer in his head and locks it tight.

He leans forward, pressing his lips haphazardly to edge of Light's mouth and then pulls away as quickly as he'd come. "Remember this moment, Light-kun," he says. "When I'm gone."

Light gets this look in his eye then, and of course, he understands, though he pretends - even to himself - that he doesn't.

"What?" he asks, trying to laugh it off as L buttons his jeans. "Where are you going?"

"I'm not sure yet," L says, throwing away the dirtied tissues and tugging on the chain to drag Light out of the bathroom after him. "Germany, perhaps," he says, as they exit the bedroom, making toward the elevator at the end of the long hall. "Maybe Sweden." He's always liked Scandinavia. "Maybe hell."

He drops the last one as casually as the rest, and if Light's steps stop for a moment and his face goes blank and he looks as if he's going to hit L or start yelling about not being Kira, then L pretends that he doesn't. It's gone in a flash, and then his steps start again and they're in the elevator in no time, smiling at one another like the world is their own private joke.

"I suppose I'll meet you there," Light says, checking his watch to see how much time they've wasted. "Hell, I mean. Not the other places, they're far too cold."

Light hates snow, L thinks. Light is an 18-year-old genius with beautiful hair and a charming smile and he hates snow and dislikes house pets and can recite all of Dante's _Inferno_ in the original Italian. He takes his tea without sugar and doesn't like orange flavor and thinks that drinking is irresponsible and makes his bed every morning with expert precision. He has never travelled outside of Japan and he says he doesn't want to. He is going to join the NPA after university. He'll probably be running it within ten years. He is brilliant.

He is also a mass murderer.

 _This will all go away soon_ , L thinks.

 

\---

 

It's a bit ridiculous - but also, perhaps, inevitable - that model and teen magazine sensation, Misa Amane, is the one to catch Kira. Or, the third Kira, anyway. And _catch_ might not be the right word, but she's got a confession and she's got what they need to set up a trap for Kysokue Higuchi, so ultimately, it might as well be.

"This is quite brilliant work, Misa-san," L tells her, flatly, as he has Watari download the recording into the system.

He's not as shocked as he could be, seeing as she's already proven herself passably clever, but there's a certain forceful quality to Misa that's specific purpose seems to be to obscure anything in her resembling intellect. He's seen this kind of thing before, of course, especially from people that, all of their lives, have only been allowed to serve as decoration. Aiber calls that kind of thing Starlet Syndrome. Wedy calls it a personality disorder. L calls it a side effect of human existence. 

Being a person is a terrible farce. Those who know how to navigate the farce are the most dangerous kinds of people, up to and including 90 pound pop idols. And, of course, idealistic teenage boys can also qualify.

"Thank you, Ryuzaki," Misa says, more quiet than usual.

She's absent, looks lost in thought, and L only wonders what she's thinking of for a moment before following her line of sight. Light is half across the room, as far as the chain will let him go, talking to his father and Matsuda about the plan, smiling easily and with all the appearance of perfect confidence in Kira's impending end.

"I'm sure Light-kun agrees," L says, less out of an urge to comfort Misa and more just to test her reaction.

She glances over abruptly, as if she'd forgotten he was there, then quickly pastes a loud smile across her face. "Yeah," she says brightly, eyes flicking back to her darling boyfriend, "I'm sure."

After a moment of forlorn silence that tries to present itself as bubbly happiness, L slides his packet of gummy candies over to her. She wrinkles her nose, but, after a few seconds of over-the-top deliberation, pops a few in her mouth. L doesn't feel bad for her, not really - she's certainly intelligent enough to realize that Light doesn't like her - but, well. He sympathizes, in his way.

"I'll get fat," Misa says, while continuing to eat his candy.

L shrugs. "Perhaps."

 

\---

**two weeks later.**

\---

 

His shoulder dislocates with a sickening shift under the skin, making his eyes roll back with that familiar thrill. Body twisting like a spineless thing, muscle contorting; it's glorious in its inhumanity.

They come a few minutes after the scheduled breakfast time, as is usual. The look on the first orderly's face is one part shock, one part resignation, because it's not as if he hasn't done this before - but that had just been for fun, a test, a little scare for the crowd. This is when all that practice pays off.

They'd put him in solitary again last week, locked him up tight in a white jacket in this white room, bright and smothering with its lack of shadows, of hiding places.

He hides in open space now, right in the direct line of sight from the door, and when Collins - it _is_ Collins, the complete cunt, the lovely sadist; they always send him because he's the roughest, and nobody in administration has a problem with prisoner no. 9012398 getting into a few accidents - when Collins comes in, he barely has time for a glance at B bending his limbs out of the straight-jacket before he's bowled over, clutching his ribs and yelping as B steps over him, foot slamming into his back with a sickening crunch.

The other one, Gonzalez, backs up into the hall instead of trying to keep B inside, which, all in all, is probably the better idea. His hand goes to the walkie-talkie at his waist, though, and so of course his wrist has to break. His grunt of pain echoes through the long hall, but the only other people in this wing are locked up in white rooms of their own. They're on camera, of course, but B will be along just fine before Fat Ralph, who has early morning watch, notices the disturbance.

Collins is getting up, so B jams the walkie into his head, shoving him back into the room and closing the door. Then he turns back to Gonzalez, who's shock has morphed into terror. Don't they teach these kiddies anything about the criminal element before sending them to tend to the prisoners? B thinks not.

There's a panic button on the wall and Gonzalez is eyeing it, so B kneels down in front of him, brushing the man's hair out of his eyes with suddenly gentle hands. _Horatio Gonzalez_. The letters, the little floating red letters are so close that he kids himself that he could reach out and touch them. Can't, though. Can't ever. The numbers, though - the numbers are even closer.

A pale hand cups Gonzalez's cheek, and he leans in, speaking softly. "Horatio," he says, and the look in the man's dark eyes rocks back to shock, because that is not on his name tag. "Shhh, Horatio. Keep quiet, yes? It's a quiet day. A lovely Sunday. Did you miss church this morning, Horatio?"

Horatio Gonzalez doesn't respond, just stares at him. B gets impatient and slaps him, and that gets a quick, terrified nod. And then, "Don't, don't - " he stammers.

"Sorry," B shrugs, almost sheepishly, hands stroking the stubble on dear Gonzalez's face, "have to."

"Don't you only kill peoples with your - with the initials - "

B.B., B thinks. He's read the file. Good boy.

"Oh that," B sighs, rolling his eyes. "Is that what I'm going to go down in the history books for? _Boring_. That was just to get his attention." He leans up slightly, making to stand. Horatio tries to stand, too, and B kicks his legs out from under him. An alarm goes off somewhere. _Prisoner on the loose_. B smirks.

"Whose?" Gonzalez asks, in his quivering voice.

B's smirk doesn't drop. He bends down slightly and says, "Tell the big man I said _hi_ , will you?" And then he snaps Horatio Gonzalez's neck.

They'll have a nice funeral, B thinks. White. A pretty white church on a pretty white morning like this. People always dress death up in lovely layers.

He makes it out of the facility in under ten minutes, even though they've been in lockdown for eight. The concrete digs into his bare feet and sirens echo a familiar tune in his head. His crisp white patient's uniform is too obvious, so he strips in an alley and trades his clothes to a drunken homeless man. He yawns, thinks about getting a coffee and finding a newspaper, but he doesn't have time to waste.

Lawliet needs him and Japan is a long way from California. 

 

\---

**two weeks earlier.**

\---

 

There is a riotous sea under his skin when Light touches him, and it never quite goes away no matter how much they keep touching, or fucking, or talking each other in circles with the same tired accusations and flimsy defenses. Round and round, and L doesn't know when it will stop, only that when it does, one of them will have to die.

"You'll kill me someday, won't you?" he whispers into Light's hair.

This will all go away soon.

 

\---

**tbc.**

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it's not obvious (and it probably isn't because it's been a while) the last scene of this chapter is the same as the beginning of the very first scene of the very first chapter. Which is to say, we've come more or less full circle. But there are still a lot more circles left to get through, so.
> 
> There's a phrase in here that is not mine and does not belong to me, but I want to draw attention to it because it's awesome. "an ecstasy of unhappiness" is a quote ~~from the incomparable Ms. Austen (from Sense and Sensibility, I think?)~~ and it's one of my favorite descriptions of anything ever and I was kind of over to moon to have an opportunity to use it. So, there's that.
> 
> [ **ETA:** Actually, I just looked it up and it's Dickens. (Of course it's Dickens. Most brilliant things are dickens.) It's in Great Expectations, directly after a line that I tend to read over and over, and so that's how it got stuck in my head. There's an eerily similar line in Sense and Sensibility, though, I believe, so I'm not completely off.]
> 
> Stay tuned for next chapter, which may contain actual plot. ~gasp
> 
> Thank you all again.


	6. the ends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladies and gentlemen, (probably mostly ladies), the moment you've been waiting for…

_"Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form."_  
\- Herman Melville, _Moby Dick: or, the White Whale._

 

\---

 

The night drags on.

They've set Matsuda's interview on Sakura TV up for tomorrow and L is acting strange. Stranger than usual. He paces. He eats enough sweets to feed a small country. He goes over the plan once, twice, and again and again. He sprawls on their bed, legs spread out and head hanging off of the edge, back a crooked arch. He recites half of Homer's _Iliad_ in rapid Greek, accent strange and fascinating to Light, who lies beside him, not even pretending to try to sleep any longer. He tells Light that he is beautiful. He says half-hearted, disjointed things, confessions and accusations, a veritable conglomeration of unspoken fears finally uttered in the quiet dawn.

"Imagine us standing in the street," he murmurs, curled onto his side and watching Light with wide, distant bug-eyes. "Just imagine us, standing there. Now imagine a car coming out of nowhere and killing us both instantly." He says it like it's nothing. "We should know better. We should know better than to stand around in the middle of the street, shouldn't we?"

"L, what - ?" Light asks, because he doesn't know what to say. He doesn't like when L is like this, pathetic and poetical and even more of a puzzle than usual.

"The car is coming, Light," he says. "You are the car."

He's either too out of it to notice or he really has dispensed with the honorifics completely, because Light is now just _Light_ to him. It's oddly freeing.

"This is ridiculous," Light says, falling onto his back and rolling his eyes, because if it really is the end of the world the way L is acting like it is, then they might as well not waste it. "You're being ridiculous. Let's fuck."

L stares at him for a long moment, then shrugs. "Okay."

At this point, Light wouldn't particularly mind if L were to climb on top of him and give it to him roughly, the way L likes to when his head goes missing and he needs something to focus on. He doesn't move, though, just lies there, apparently waiting for Light to do his worst, and so Light does.

L's head still hangs off of the bed and the ragged ends of his hair drag on the floor with every thrust, body bobbing like a buoy during a storm, a violent sea knocking them into one another. L's body is taut and he sweats slowly, eyes locked on the ceiling above of him, like his mind is somewhere completely separate. If it were possible to even entertain the notion of L thinking of anyone but him, Light might be slightly jealous at the moment. But it isn't possible, not unless -

Light grits his teeth, gives a particularly rough thrust. "Are you thinking about Kira?" he gasps into L's ear.

"Yes," L says, automatically. At least he's not lying, for once. "Are you?"

Light hates him, but also rather adores him in these horribly depressing ways, like a schoolgirl with a crush on some inscrutable professor twice her age. They're star-crossed, almost romantic at times - though now is not one of those times. "You're wrong about it, L," he grunts, because he's thrilling with need and the words won't come smoothly. "You're so wrong and you're going to be so fucking _ashamed_ when you find out how wrong you are. You better apologize. You better grovel."

"Is that what you want?" L breathes into his ear, finally actually looking at him. "For me to grovel?"

"Yes," Light groans, feeling like such an embarrassment to himself, but he wants, he wants, _he wants._

"Light," L gasps, voice going breathy and unbelievably submissive. "Please," he begs.

A closer look shows the slightly impish smile on L's lips, a tease. Light suspects he's being made fun of, but it's hot enough that he can't quite bring himself to mind. "Bastard," he grits. L shifts his hips, delivering maddening pressure with just a slight adjustment, and Light comes gasping inside of him a few minutes later, jerking L off roughly with his other hand.

L's still smiling slightly, sated and hazy, a few moments later when everything fades down from the glistening thrill of orgasm. "Sleep," L tells him in a quiet, lulling voice, at once both very kind and very cruel. Light doesn't know what to think, doesn't know how to deal with any of this.

He only knows that he's not Kira, and he comforts himself with this thought as he strokes L's jagged shoulder blades and drifts into a loose sleep, both happy - in some twisted, unexplainable way - and scared out of his mind.

 

\---

 

L knows it's a bad idea, but he's off the chain again, wrist bare and swinging unimpaired at his side.

Maybe it had been the taste of freedom last week, maybe it's just that tomorrow - given the plan, given Higuchi - things will most certainly change. Maybe he simply needs to think, and can't do as much in Light's presence, listening to his soft, even breaths rise and fall like a ticking clock, counting down to the end of the case.

The building is quiet at this time of night, world strung halfway to morning but still waiting. L slips quietly out onto one of the balconies, door opening and closing with a short click and the soft patter of his footsteps and nothing more. His feet are bare and the cold October air hits him in a rush and he's finally able to process things in the quiet chill - or he would be able, were he alone.

His first thought is Wedy, eyes catching on the wafting curls of cigarette smoke, but of course he's wrong. Misa looks cold in nothing but a dressing gown and slippers, leaning against the building like a cast-off china doll, choking quietly on her cigarette. If she'd been shocked to see L come out, she's covered it up by now, eyes lowered tiredly.

L stares at her for a long moment, not knowing what to think and, ultimately, deciding not to think anything in particular.

"New hobby?" he asks, nodding at the cigarette, voice softer than it needs to be.

"Wedy gave it to me," she says, sounding more calm than he's maybe ever heard her, no note of chipper excitement bubbling in the words. "Then she said I had skin like Barbara Stanwyck, but I don't know who that is." She coughs, seemingly yet to have mastered smoking, but trying again anyhow.

"Old-time western movie actress," L says, shifting his gaze away from her and back to the city skyline. "Wedy knows her noir."

Tokyo really is beautiful, in its way. Most cities L has been to are, although it often takes time to see it. He spends more than enough time watching the horizon through towering buildings, sees the world reflected in chrome and glass and heavy stone, his own eyes cut down the middle with the mirrored sky. He suspects his life story could be told in window views and balcony mornings, quiet moments like this one.

Neither of them speak for a long time, both in worlds completely separate from one another, only crossing over in odd places. 

"Don't tell Light," Misa says, after a moment. She's not looking at him, just watches the sun crawl on fragile legs into the sky. "He thinks smokers are disgusting."

She's not wearing any make-up and she looks different. Older, maybe, strange as that seems. There's a small, hidden part of L that wishes that she were brilliant, the mastermind behind the operation - the _real_ Kira. She could be the villain and Light could be her helpless puppet, manipulated into horrible acts instead of reveling in them, a victim. Someone L could save instead of someone he has to destroy. In truth, of course, it's more than likely the opposite of that, and Misa is the victim in this situation. Maybe if L were a better person, he'd try to save her.

Maybe if she were a better person, she wouldn't need saving in the first place.

"Misa-san," he says to her downcast eyes, because this doesn't feel like a time where he needs to dance around the subject, "don't you ever get tired of always putting Light before yourself?"

She looks up at him then. "No," she says abruptly, like there isn't any other possible answer. "You'd think I would, right?" She laughs, a half-hearted, tinkling laugh, like she's attempting the farce but can't quite commit to it, not on this kind of morning. "I'm not, though, not really. Light makes me… happy." She says it like _happy_ isn't really what she means, but she can't think of a better word for what she feels. "Even when he's not - even if he says things that - I can't help it. I want to keep that feeling."

She looks at L like she's waiting for confirmation, like she wants him to say that he understands. The awful part is that he rather does.

He leaves her on the balcony with her cigarette burning down between his small fingers, childlike hands shaking in the chill morning air.

 

\---

 

He really should go back to the room, back to Light, but he finds himself heading to a different floor instead.

When L slumps in, disheveled in yesterday's clothes and sex-tousled hair and the fading pangs of the cool outdoor breeze, Watari is already exquisite in his uniform, hair neatly combed, mustache trimmed and glasses polished to a smooth shine. He smiles, softly and politely, when he sees L.

"Tea?" he asks, already pulling out another cup.

"Yes," L says, needlessly. He stands there, glancing around blankly, trying to remember if he's even been in Watari's room here before, and deciding it probably doesn't matter either way. There are so many rooms, so many buildings, so many useless memories of places neither of them will ever go again.

After the Kira case, L thinks, he'll wait years before coming back to Japan. He needs a change, a world as much separate from this one as he can possibly get. Maybe he'll see about cases in the tropics. He's always rather hated hot weather, but he thinks he could make himself used to it, if the need arises. He tells himself that it's not out of the desire to put an entire globe between Light and himself, but he knows better than anyone what a liar he is.

Watari nods to a chair and L climbs into it, curling up around himself for lack of anything better to do. Watari brings the pot over and sets the tea things on a small coffee table between them, placing a large bowl of sugar cubes in front of L, who immediately pops one into his mouth and crunches appreciatively.

"Now," Watari says, when everything is set up, familiar British lilt calming L in the way it always does, "I presume you want to talk about Light Yagami?"

"He's Kira," L says simply, sipping from his tea cup.

Watari nods. "It seems most likely."

L waits until he's finished swallowing to say, in his dullest, most unremarkable voice, "He's not bad in bed, either." Watari sips his tea, not reacting with anything more than another nod and a slightly patronizing smile, as if he knows exactly what reaction L is fishing for and isn't going to grant it to him. L rolls his eyes, clicking his spoon around his teacup. "Aren't you going to say something inspiring about justice and personal sacrifices?" he mumbles.

Watari dabs at his mouth with a napkin. "You have a job to do. You're doing it well. I don't believe that you need my assurances to have confidence in your methods, however unorthodox." He doesn't says _unorthodox_ like it's at all negative, and in fact, has always thought very highly of L's keen ability to manipulate his suspects using sex. L's not sure what that says about either of them, but suspects that it can't be good.

"I'm not doing it well," L counters.

Because, yes, Light has fallen for him. Light is set to sit, stay and roll over if L tells him to, but it's no use having a criminal mastermind in the palm of your hand if he has no memory of being a criminal mastermind, and what's worse, wanting to keep him there for as long as possible. In his palm, in his bed, in his body and against his lips.

His own affection is sickening and L would have it surgically removed if he could. Like a tumor.

"You care for him," Watari says, because he has never been one to dance around an issue, not even when said issue is one that could perhaps stand to be danced around. "It's not the end of the world. Despite your pretensions, you are not a machine - "

"Disappointing, isn't it?" L bites out, interrupting him. "You always wanted me to be." He immediately regrets it - Watari has done _so much_ for him; done everything, always - but he doesn't apologize.

Watari, for his part, is too used to L's shifting moods to be offended. "I wanted you to be brilliant," he corrects, eyes twinkling with a stern kindness. "You are brilliant." He sounds less like a proud father and more like the inventor that he is, reveling in the success of one of his creations.

He has every right to, though, L admits.

"I trust that your attachment won't interfere with the job?" Watari continues.

"Of course not."

Watari nods. They drink their tea. After a long, barely comfortable silence, he asks, "Then, is it fatherly advice that you're looking for?"

As if L is some child, some little boy who needs to ask - _ask_ \- about love and romance and the birds and the bees. As if he couldn't write essays and theses on the chemical reactions in the brain required to create love or lust, adoration and obsession, and all of the terrible feelings in between. He _is_ brilliant and he resents the very notion that he is naive about anything.

"Thank you for the tea," he says flatly, standing from his chair and grabbing a few sugar cubes to take with him. Watari watches him go, not attempting to stop him or soften the blow. He, more than anyone, is used to L's fragile temper, his passive-aggression. L owes the man everything and, with this on his mind, stops in the doorway and says, without turning around, "If I die, do what needs to be done. Incarcerate him. Kill him, if necessary."

L can't see him, but he assumes that Watari nods. "And if you don't die?"

L does look at him then, not sure how to answer that. "If I don't die," he begins slowly, "then the game is still on. Don't do anything, in that case. Just let me play."

Watari nods again. Half his life, L thinks, is made up of nodding.

He thinks that's the end of it, but then, as Watari rises to begin cleaning up the tea things, he says the very last thing L want to hear. "Regarding Beyond," he starts.

"He ought to be killed," L says, cutting him off immediately.

"Yes," Watari agrees.

L knows if he gives the order then that's the end of it. A call will be made, someone will be dispatched, and that loose end will be permanently tied up, never to be unwound. He could bandage the last of his childhood wounds, finally put an end to the monster in his closet. But killing B strikes him with the same horrified revulsion that amputating one of his own limbs would; even if it were infected, even if there was no saving it and it would probably ultimately kill him, he can't do it.

"I'll get back to you," is all he says. "For now, do nothing."

Watari, predictably, nods.

"Oh, and L?" he calls, when L is halfway through the door. It must be nearing morning now, and if Light's not awake yet, he will be. "You'll need a haircut soon."

L huffs a slight laugh, and it's his turn to nod. If he survives this, if he comes back from today alive, then maybe he'll look into personal grooming.

 

\---

 

Light wakes up as L crawls back into bed, ticklish strands of hair brushing his chest and the echoing clink of the handcuffs being reattached ricocheting through his head. L's face is pressed to his sternum, cheek squished against his chest and his heavy eyes are the first thing Light sees when he blinks himself hazily into consciousness. He smells like tea.

"Morning," Light murmurs.

"Mmm," L returns, which is more of a greeting than he usually bothers with

Most mornings, L is already - or still - on his laptop by the time Light gets up, or sorting through print-outs, or even just spread out on his back, staring straight up as if he's trying to crack some invisible code written on the ceiling. Working, working, always working, the unstoppable supercomputer that is L's mind running at full capacity, even when most people are only just sitting down to their morning coffee. That he's cuddled up to Light like some affectionate pet on this day of all days is perhaps unusual, but not unexpected. Light feels as if the they'd both be better served to stay here for the foreseeable future, the case be damned.

Kira is welcome to the world, if only Light can keep L.

Of course, things don't actually work like that, and idealism and positive thinking only go so far. The rest they have to do by themselves. With that in mind, he drags L out of bed, chain wrapped up in his hand, and tugs him into the bathroom where they shower quickly and with little fuss, moving with and around each other as if it had been choreographed beforehand. L looks good naked and dripping wet, and on another day - one where the world wasn't about to possibly end - Light would fuck him against the slick tiled wall, but today is today, so they just wash and dress and go down to breakfast in the kitchen, where Matsuda and Mogi are already set up over a box of fresh donuts.

"I picked them up earlier," Matsuda says, grinning sheepishly, his nervousness blatant. "I thought we could all use a morale booster."

L's eyes go wide and comically pleased when he spies a jelly-filled, quickly going to pluck it up between two long, spindly fingers.

"Matsuda-san," he says, solemn tone clashing with the ridiculousness of the white powder that gets all over his lips, "you are an invaluable member of this team. Don't forget that." Maybe it's meant to be a joke, but L says it so seriously that Matsuda's jaw quivers a little as he blushes gratefully.

"I won't," he promises, too earnest for his own good. "Light-kun," he offers. "I know you're not fond of sweets, but," he starts, cutting off when Light leans over to pluck a glazed up with a napkin.

L's eyes jerk over to him, already so wide that they can't get wider, but Light sees the minor surprise anyway. "What?" he says. "I need the morale boost. Besides, I'm giving half to you."

L seems to find this an acceptable explanation, because he takes the rather large piece that Light rips off for him and shoves it his mouth without pause and Light notes, not for the first time, that L eats even more when he's stressed. If he didn't have such a severely fucked-up metabolism - and he must have some kind of thyroid problem, because otherwise there's no possible way he could eat so much and still remain so bone-ragged thin - then he'd probably gain and lose weight at fluctuating degrees, depending on the state of his cases. It's actually quite unhealthy, but then most things about L are. Originally, Light had even entertained that he was a relatively uncommon example of male bulimia, but after spending several months with him at every waking moment, he's come to the conclusion that L's body just works in some suitably inhuman way that, regardless of his diet, makes him look as if he's consistently suffering from some sort of wasting disease.

Light watches him polish off several more donuts with vague, fascinated disgust, waiting for Matsuda and Mogi to move into the main room before grabbing him by the wrist. "You're nervous," he says.

"I have reason," L replies, dropping the current donut as if he's suddenly not hungry any more. His legs curl up, knees hitting under his chin, as if he means to wrap himself up and disappear. "If things go as planned, we're going to catch a Kira tonight."

" _The_ Kira, maybe," Light says, even if he doesn't actually believe that Higuchi is the original mastermind behind the operation. Still, the real Kira might try to come to his aid, or maybe Higuchi will give something up if they question him. Anything could happen tonight. "Maybe," he repeats, just to get a taste of the possibilities, "maybe for once in you life you're wrong about something."

L looks at him with blank eyes, eyes that can't see maybe.

"I'm not."

And that should be the end of it, shouldn't it? Light is so much better than this, could have so much better than this - could have anybody, really. There's a model upstairs that spends most of her waking life throwing herself at him, girls, and probably boys, back at university that would sell all of their worldly possessions for even a chance with him. But Light has always been so much better than them, better than everything, better than love and hate and all of those petty abstractions that people get so ridiculous about.

He's better than this man curled up on a chair before him, a pathetic excuse for justice, drained and frail and wrong, wrong, _wrong_. He's better than this feeling in the pit of his stomach, clawing its way up through his chest like a thing with teeth and jaws and a horrible severity of emotion. _Better_ , he thinks - knows.

Despite that, his hands go out to take L's and he's suddenly leaning forward, looking into those dead eyes that he's become so unreasonably fond of, and trying not to beg L to trust him. He swallows it back, says instead, "No matter what happens - " and is almost glad when L cuts him off because he knows how cliche and _weak_ he's being.

"What are you going to say, Light?" L snaps, tone still flat but angry in a way that Light doesn't think he deserves, given how much he's _given_ L. "Something sweeping and romantic? A promise of everlasting love? That you'll meet me in Paris when this is all over." He huffs a laugh, so biting, the way he gets when things aren't going his way. "Rendezvous on the Eiffel Tower. I'll bring flowers, you'll wear a red dress. It'll be just like those films that put us both to sleep."

He's still rolling his eyes petulantly - stupid, _stupid_ man - when Light grabs him by the face with both hands, makes him stop talking and _listen_.

"Shut-up," he snaps. _Shut-up, shut-up, shut-up._ Light has given him everything and so L just needs to shut-up. "You know what I'm going to say. I - "

L doesn't shut-up. In fact, he says two of the worst things he could possibly say. "It doesn't matter," is the first. He's curling even further into his chair now. "You're Kira," is the second.

And he's not. He's not, he's not, _he's not_. And even if he is - he's not - but if by some strange twist of fate he is - god, L would just be fucking thrilled by that, wouldn't he? - then what does it even matter? L straight-out said that he and Kira are practically the same, serve more or less the same function, and even if Light doesn't truly believe that - because L is better, so much better - it doesn't matter, because L does. L thinks about Kira all the time, L thinks about him when Light is fucking him and when he is fucking Light and _what does it matter?_

No, no, that's -

"I don't want to be," he says, abruptly, but he sounds so desperate and unsure that he doesn't think that either of them believe it.

L sighs, finally unfurling to set his feet down on the floor, toes wiggling idly. He seems to remember that he's the adult here and that perhaps he should act like it once in a while, because he leans forward to brush Light's hair out of his eyes, expression halfway between fond and disappointed.

"We'll know more after tonight," he says. "Maybe I am wrong, maybe you're completely innocent. I doubt it, but there's always a possibility, a margin for error." His hand slips away as easily as it had come, a wisp of bone and tendon and thin white skin. His voice is low and pathetically comforting. "Whatever you want to say, tell me tomorrow."

 

\---

 

Light is smiling, like this is a field trip, a day out, a little on-the-job experience for his portfolio. He stares out of the open door, watching the city below them fade by in a blur of bright lights and distant sounds, sirens cutting loudly into the usual din of Tokyo's nightlife as they chase Higuchi down through the relatively clear air traffic.

"Where did you learn to fly a helicopter?" he asks, turning that smile on L, and L wonders if maybe, just maybe, this isn't the end. Maybe his calculations really have been off, maybe he's been compromised, maybe he's just no good anymore. Maybe Light is just the victim of some horrible plot and they will live happily ever after and ride off into the sunset and actually go to Paris or whatever cliche place people go to when they're mad for each other.

"Over the English countryside," L says, not looking at him. It does, after all, take a bit a minor concentration to keep from crashing into errant skyscrapers. "When I was fourteen."

Light laughs, like this is some sort of brilliant adventure. He looks the way someone might look if they were happy. "That's ridiculous," he says.

"Yes," L agrees, and moves to land on the street below, a veritable army of police cars already congregated around Higuchi. Watari's got his gun ready and Light's brow goes hard, face arranged in an expression of genuine resolve.

 _Maybe_ , L thinks.

 

\---

 

Light touches the notebook, curiously, and something rocks inside of him and it's sort of like -

Oh. _Oh._

He remembers.

Everything shifts sharply into place and then all of those loose ends begin making knots, wrapping themselves up in a web of understanding, spelling out the plans of the Gods, a map of the universe behind his eyes, and he _remembers_. It terrifies him for a moment, is everything he's been fighting with such valiant determination, but something tilts the axis of the world and the planet begins spinning differently and then it all makes sense. The who and the what and the where all return in a flash, but the _why_ reveals itself more slowly, mounting in a glorious cacophony that rises in up in him like a mountain, like a bridge to the sky.

He is justice.

It's simple. It's a thousand names and a thousand dead and hand-cramps and late nights and complex plans and never stopping, never ever stopping to take a breath - but it's simple, really. He's justice.

Without that, he's just a boy with a notebook and too much time on his hands, and maybe if he were anyone else, if he were less of a person - one of the pointless, mindless millions who drone through their daily lives with no concerns beyond what's for lunch and the cute girl in their class and whether they'll get hired at this firm or that company - maybe then this would all be the wrong thing. But he _is_ justice, it embodies him, lives in his eyes and his clothes and his fingers and his hair that L like so much and -

And L.

L.

Everything stops for a moment, just freezes, his mind treating him to a snow globe view of the last few months - the hands and the lips and the eyes, L's back a fractured arch against the crisp, clean bedsheets, hands scrabbling desperately, hair a mess, eyes shaded black with a sick sort of urgency, gasping desperately as he - as Light -

Light didn't. No, Light _wouldn't._

It's a pathetic animal impulse, rutting and grunting, rolling in each other's sweat and spit and semen, clawing each other close. People do it all the time, but people are _disgusting_ , sick animals, too dumb to resist their hormones, letting a chemical reaction of the body _control_ them, rule their actions, blot out their mind, and L - L _did that to him._

L is worse than the protector of murderers and rapists and scum, he _is_ one. He's defiled a God, dragged Light down with him, into his dirty pale hands and long thighs and _fucking hell_ \- it's rising in him, swirling in his stomach, and he might vomit, he might actually vomit and fuck that's not going to be suspicious or anything, throwing up as soon as he touches the Death Note, great fucking plan, and this is L's fault, _L's fault._

He breathes in deep, getting a hold on himself, shoving the sickness down and planting the mask straight across his face, latching it to the skin, becoming Light Yagami, the 18-year-old university student who wants nothing more than to capture Kira and bring him to justice. Yes, yes, he can do this. Of course he can do this.

He is justice.

"Light, are you alright?" L asks, staring at him with those wide eyes, deformed little body curled up, so ugly, _ugly._

It makes Light sick just to look at him, that horrible wave of nausea shifting through his belly again, low down, a burning sort of feeling like he needs to pin L down and - _no._ No. "Fine," he says, pasting on the practiced smile, and he should win a fucking award for this, the way he sells it, L nodding quickly and taking back the notebook.

Higuchi is yelling and the police are running around in a panic, dodging around Rem like she's about to go on some sort of rampage - funny how terrified they are of something so completely useless - and Light doesn't have time for L right now, so he shoves it all down, hiding it in all of those caves he's built just for occasions such as this, and does what needs to be done. The watch comes open easily and Higuchi goes down easily, falling and yelling, a disgrace even in his last few moments. Rem couldn't have given the notebook to a more unworthy person, but it doesn't matter now.

It's back, everything's back to how it should be and -

The chain clinks as Light shifts and the caves crack open and he's flooding, _just flooding_ , doesn't have enough room in his mind to hold all of the thoughts that rush to a forefront. There's a room, and a bed, and in the room and on that bed L had crawled on top of him, had pressed so close and sunk down deep and given him something that he hadn't wanted, that he couldn't have wanted, couldn't, couldn't -

_"Sometimes I want to pretend that the only thing that's ever happened to me is you."_

Liar.

_"You'll kill me someday, won't you?"_

Yes. Yesyesyes.

_"We do plenty of wrong things for justice, Light."_

Higuchi is still yelling and he wants to shut it off, just wants to shut down his brain for a moment, just -

_"I will live and die as a force of justice, I will serve my purpose and solve crimes and put criminals away. I will save the people that I can, and I will kill, and torture, and lie, and manipulate, and fuck when I have to. That's just my job."_

Stop, stop, stop. He wants it to stop.

And, it does. 

The second hand ticks by and Higuchi stops yelling and the mass panic rolls into slow motion, and then everything fades out, like he's moved into a separate world, one that locks sharply on L's voice when he says, "Are you sure you're alright? You look pale," flatly, without a single emotion. Like he hasn't just discovered Kira's murder weapon, like Kira isn't _sitting right next to him,_ even though L of course knows that he is.

Light turns to look at him but he can't speak, he can't breath, he can't -

And he thinks, _oh god, he's not ugly, he's not ugly at all_ at the same time as he thinks _how did this happen?_ He thinks of L bloody and helpless and squirming underneath him, pinned down, trying to get away but unable - unable to do anything but lie there and let Light have him, a sacrifice offered up to a new God, a casualty of war. He thinks of L's neck, his long throat and his bony elbows and the way his skin is so soft and pliable when it should be brittle and thin, winter-tree limbs hanging every which way, a mess of a man.

Light doesn't know his name, but unlike every other person on this earth, his name doesn't seem important. It's an afterthought, one that comes long after his body, and his hair and cock and thick, black eyes. Light is going to kill him and Light is going to fuck him and Light is going to do it all with his own hands, going to tear him apart with fingers that have only written names, because L is not ugly and L is not small and L is not like the rest of them, not really.

L is like him. L is his.

Nothing has changed, and so has everything.

 

\---

 

 _Maybe,_ L had thought, before.

Now there is a small black notebook on the table in front of him and a giant grey mass of decay and dull glances who calls herself Rem floating at his shoulder. There's a light rain over Tokyo today and Matsuda leans his chin on his palm and watches the outdoor camera views, looking through a window that isn't there. Mogi is getting Aizawa and Ide up to date on the case. Misa is packing her things, preparing to move back into her old apartment. Aiber and Wedy are on one of the balconies, smoking in the rain. Aiber keeps touching her shoulder and Wedy keeps brushing him off with a slow smile. Watari is in the control room. There have been no more calls from B in the last week.

Light is standing a few feet away, neat shadow darkening the ground behind him as the bare fluorescents shine down, casting his normally glowing face in a dull, cold light. The chain still connects them, but Light is standing as far away as possible. He smiles at L, but his eyes keep shifting to the table. The Death Note lies there, a weapon of mass destruction in a plain binding and rigid rules.

And now L thinks, _maybe not._

He's read all of the rules multiple times, scanned every page, has had Watari run every test on it that their in-house lab can manage and found nothing - nothing to explain how it is what it is or does what it does. They don't even know if it actually works or if this is just some plant, some cheesy prop that Kira had left behind in order to throw them off of his trail. L would be convinced of that, in fact, were it not for Rem. Gigantic, hulking monsters tend to sell things a bit better than edgy font and gothically stylized designs.

The whole thing reeks of an outdated sort of horror, far more Lovecraft than Conan Doyle, and L certainly knows which he prefers.

The chief comes in, slipping his phone into his pocket. He's been sorting things out with Interpol all night and morning and he looks even more haggard than usual, jaw unshaved and stray lines of grey obvious in his hair. His presence sends the room into a tense silence and L doesn't have to turn around to tell who they're all looking at, and what.

He sighs, picking the Death Note up between his thumb and forefinger, holding it out in front of him like some minorly interesting specimen that he doesn't much want to touch. The room gets tenser.

L rolls his eyes because this is already dull. "It appears Lord Lytton was right," he says. "The pen is indeed mightier than the sword."

Light is the only one who laughs, and not just because he is likely the only person in the room who understands who he is referencing. The quote doesn't translate that well in Japanese and, that aside, no one's in a particularly jovial mood. Light's quiet chuckle dies off quickly and he looks gravely at his hands, so solemn, so _perfect_ , an impeccable actor. It's all perfect, too perfect, and L knows that everything is lost now.

He doesn't know how and he doesn't know when, but Light isn't there anymore. Kira is home and Kira, even with his eyes downcast and his brow quirked serious, is _happy_.

"I think we should light it on fire," L says, dropping the Death Note back on to the table.

This is, predictably, met with an even more reproachful reaction than his first joke. Deafening silence, and then -

"Ryzuaki, you can't be serious - "

"You saw the rule, you saw what will happen if anything happens to the Death Note - "

"What are you even - Light, what is he even talking about?"

Aizawa's running a frustrated hand through his afro and Ide has jumped out of his chair with the force of this new indignity and Matsuda's up and running around in a panic, headed straight for Light as if he's the only one who can handle this situation - savior as always. Even Mogi looks quietly affronted. The chief's grey patches seem to have gone grayer in the last few seconds. The Shinigami's face is blank as ever, but it still manages to look slightly annoyed by the commotion.

L sits in his chair, waiting for things the die down, because he's gotten what he was looking for. For all the loud and various forms of panic displayed by the members of the investigation team, none are so telling as the momentary terrified widening of Light's eyes, shoved down a second later, but not before L's mind captured the instant, filing it away somewhere in the cavernous libraries of information is his mind. Light is a brilliant actor, but even he cannot control the involuntary actions of the body.

L waits for the soft clearing of the throat that sends the whole room immediately quiet as Light steps forward, assuming his usual position as representative of the sane and reasonable public against L's arsenal of horrifying and offensive theories and suggestions.

"Ryuzaki," he says, sounding so perfectly, flawlessly concerned that L _knows_ it's not real, "what do you mean?"

There's a sharp, narrowed bend to the words, hidden behind the familiar long-suffering politeness. 

L swivels his chair, head tipping to the side. "I mean that Wedy probably has a lighter and - "

"No, I mean, you read the rules, right?" Light asks, walking forward; the champion of the people, approaching the lion's den. "There's one that says that if any harm comes to the Death Note then everyone who's touched it will die. That's everyone on the investigation team, yourself included, not to mention an unlimited number of people who could have possibly come into contact with it before now."

He's giving L that soulful, imploring look, very much in the vein of, _Don't you have any decency at all?_ Funny, but a day ago that look had come off more like, _I know you're better than this._ What a difference - undetectable, to the untrained eye, but still, a _difference_ \- a few hours and a little black book can make. 

"Yes, I did see that rule," L says. "I have a theory."

"A theory," Light repeats, a note of mounting annoyance in his voice.

"Yes."

The taskforce is watching them, a hushed audience to the spectacle, the always inevitable show-down. Hero vs. villain. It says something for either Kira's manipulative abilities or else L's own failing convictions that he has, of late, been unsure of which of them is which.

"And?" Light asks, arms crossing regally across his chest.

"And," L says, wishing he had something to chew on, to busy his hands with, but knowing that Watari's got too much to do at the moment to be able to see to his every odd dietary whim, "I believe that that rule is a fake."

This, if possible, results in an every larger commotion than the previous announcement. His popularity - questionable as it's always been - is flagging quickly. Somehow or another, L isn't overly bothered by this.

"A fake rule?" Aizawa repeats, arms going up in a mad flail or incomprehension. "Why would there be a fake rule? Shinigami," he says, turning to Rem, "is there a fake rule?" The thing doesn't respond, just floats there looking rather hangdog. L appreciates that it, at least, isn't shouting. "Hey!" Aizawa snaps, trying to get its attention, apparently unperturbed by its status as a _god_. Of death, maybe, but a god nonetheless, and that surely means something.

"I also have a theory about another rule," L says, plucking at his lip.

Light's expression grows tighter. "Let me guess - "

"The 13 day rule is also likely faked," he continues, paying little heed to the rest of the team. They make their protestations and denials, expressing their disapproval as loudly as possible, but L is only paying attention to one person's reactions; the rest is just white noise, filtered out by the immensity of its unimportance.

Light's teeth grit into a irritated smile. "Convenient."

"Isn't it?"

It's contrived, is what it is. This whole thing, the way it works out perfectly in Light's favor - as things always seem to do - feels more like a scripted drama than a natural occurrence of chance. It's a game, and Kira has been playing with pieces that L hadn't even known about. It makes sense that he would take precautions, given the inevitability of L eventually discovering the Death Note, sniffing out the secret weapon. It's insurance, and it's probably been in place for months, stage all set up for the performance. And the show is on now.

"Well, why can't we test that one?" Matsuda asks, inoffensive only in his cluelessness. "At least that way none of _us_ will die."

" _Matsuda!_ " The chief snaps, ever the paragon of morality. Just like his son.

"What? I mean - I'm just saying." Matsuda slinks back into his chair, hand going sheepishly to scratch at the back his head and Soichiro turns his stern disapproval on L.

"You can't still suspect my son, Ryuzaki," he says, and at that moment L would very like to tell him about the time that Light had held him to the wall, face forward, hand on the back of his neck and body pressed down on him like a weight, digging purple bruises into his skin and whispering with hot breath into his ear about how _pretty_ L looked like that.

 _"Is it because you can't see my face?"_ L had asked after, that ever-useful bend of vulnerability evoked in his voice, just another strategy, and a successful one at that. Light's tone had faltered, hand stroking his shoulder, when he'd said, _"Yeah, probably."_

He doesn't recite that particular scene for the team, though, despite how amusing the look on Light's face would surely prove to be. He just tilts his head, playing dull instead of clever, and says, "Can't I?"

Because he is L and he is, with the arguable exception of Kira himself, the most powerful man in the world. If he chose, he could have all of them incarcerated and facing charges in under ten minutes for failing to cooperate with an investigation regarding international security. Interpol wouldn't help him, of course, but they wouldn't stop him, either. They never stop him. If he were a different man - or maybe the same man he is now, only with different interests - he could have the world flipped on its head in under six months, could do or change or fix or break _anything_. He is 24 years old and he is raw power, a man who is a letter who is the law.

The sentiment, though not specific, hangs heavy in he air around him, and it's clear that everyone in the room feels it. Even Light. He lets it settle there, taut and uncomfortable, a brief nod to what he _could_ do, if he wanted to, before he sighs uninterestedly and stands straight up from his chair.

"I suppose, given the evidence, it would be highly unethical for me to hold you any longer, wouldn't it, Light-kun?" he asks, and there's a palpable, if not audible, breath let out by the team at large. L doesn't actually have any interest in directly antagonizing them at this point, now that they've served most all of the functions they possibly could for him. He just wants to make it understood that he has the undeniable option to.

Light eyes him steadily. "That's right."

"Come along, then." L doesn't glance at him, just shuffles off toward the elevator. "The key to the handcuff chain is up in our room."

It's still funny to think of _them_ having a room, though it's been months now. L and Kira, bunking together. L's slept with many people, but he's lived with very few, and those he has - save Watari, of course - have never parted from him on good terms. Come to think of it, he doesn't know that he's ever parted from anyone on good terms, given that he's either leaving criminals behind bars or police officers and government officials upstaged in the wake of his prowess. He doubts anyone on the Kira taskforce will remember him fondly when this is over.

If this is ever over. It will have to be at some point, he knows. Maybe some point soon.

Light, given no other option, follows him to the elevator, and L lets a heavy pause weigh them all down before mumbling, "We'll discuss this in more detail later. For now, continue your correspondence with Interpol and inform me of any updates on the current situation." He puts his finger out, but pauses over the button for their floor, flicking his eyes towards the back of the room. "Oh, and Matsuda? I'm putting you in charge of the Death Note in my absence. Please watch over it carefully."

It's very much worth any possible risks to the investigation this might pose to see Light's eyes go wide and his throat spasm a bit, presumably choking back whatever vehement protest he wants to make. And it's obvious then, more obvious than Kira should probably be, how attached to the thing he is. Just a little black notebook.

L jabs the button and as the doors to the elevator close, he can't help his chipper, if slightly _schadenfreude_ -based, amusement at the exchange that echoes after them.

"Everyone keep Matsuda out of reach of writing utensils," Aizawa says, only partly sounding like he's joking.

"Hey, you guys know I'd never write anyone's name down!"

"Not on purpose, but you're always accidentally recording your case notes on important documents."

"That was one time!"

 

\---

 

The key is not upstairs and they both know that the key is not upstairs. L has pulled it out of nowhere enough times that he's sure Light has noticed. He notices everything, the beautiful mind, and so L is prepared for questions and accusations, all of the usual. But he shouldn't be, he realizes quickly, because this Light is not the Light he is used to. He's gone from wild and boyishly determined to stark and calculating, no longer secure enough in his innocence to risk acting even slightly suspicious. And that's where he's faltering, where he's always faltered. The overcompensation, the need to plot and act and even kill to a tee, perfect even in his criminality.

There is always an aura of perfection to Light, of course, and he is never unstudied or artless, but something is still different now. It's not a fact so much as a feeling, and deplorable as it may be, L does most of his best work on feelings, that sick strangling in the gut that tells him that _this_ is his man - or woman or child or group. He is methodical in his intuitions, but they still rule him in most cases. There are some things that logic cannot account for. Things like Death Notes and Shinigami and the way that Light looks at him sometimes, in the coolest hours of the morning when their feet knock against each other and bright glow of L's laptop screen is upstaged by the warm puff of Light's breath, and -

And L has to let this go.

The past few months are gone and the boy he spent them with isn't going to come back - he's 90% sure, anyway - and if he ever does, L vows to have enough evidence by then to convict him, anyway. Behind bars with all the rest of them, or else dead and forgotten.

So, he lets it go.

Now what does he do?

"What is this about?" Light asks, voice trying to be kind but not quite managing. He tugs L closer with the chain, probably a measured gesture to inspire familiarity, but L commits to not letting it work. "You can't still seriously think that I'm - "

"Maybe I just don't want you to leave."

L's not sure when he decides to say it, but he does. He can't continue to outright accuse Light, not if he wants to stay alive long enough to catch him up. He needs to gather evidence and in order to get evidence, he needs Light to act. Unless he's already acted? Higuchi - that's something. How did he kill Higuchi? He couldn't have had Misa do it, as she was stuck here and still, presumably, has no memory of being Kira, unless Light has somehow managed to restore it to her without them even coming in contact with each other. But then how does one return memory, anyway? How did Light do it? Did the Shinigami do it for him or did it just happen automatically when he touched the Death Note? Maybe when Higuchi died, the ownership reverted to Light - but no, no, someone had to kill Higuchi and that person could only be Light.

And so even if it's the most blatant lie he could possibly tell, he needs to keep up appearances just a little longer. And then -

He will do his job.

They go through the familiar routine like automatons. Light runs a careful hand up L's neck and through his hair, turning him around to meet his eyes, but the movements are stilted, virgin-awkward, like they haven't done this dozens of times. Light's inflection is even slightly off when he says, "I'm not - I'm not going anywhere. I'll stay at headquarters. I'll stay. Don't worry."

He looks down at L with those soulful eyes of his and it's really quite nauseating from this distance. A day ago, this had meant something inexpressible, had opened up wells in L's mind from which contradicting, twisting thoughts had flown like water, infecting every bit of him. Spreading like a disease. Light is the disease and Kira, it seems, is the cure.

L feels nothing now. He is, to take a page from the book of cliches that he so despises, _empty_. He is cured.

"And don't do anything _stupid_ because of me," Light says, which to him just sounds like, _The harder you peruse me as a suspect, the sooner you will die._ And so L answers in kind.

"I'm sorry, Light-kun, but it's far too late for that." He pulls the key from his pocket then, not bothering to try to conceal it. It doesn't matter anymore. He unlocks the cuffs with two sharp clicks, then turns away, going over to stare at the bed. The sheets are neat and tucked-in at the edges, the way Light always does them up. It's a bit jarring to realize that Light isn't going to do that anymore. "You should sleep. Watari's set up a bedroom for you on the floor above this one."

There are creases in the sheets, and he wants to smooth them out, but doesn't.

"What are you going to do?" Light asks, folding up the chain with a series of tinny clinks and setting it neatly on the bed, coming unsettlingly close to L as he does.

L doesn't look at him. "I think I could use some rest, too."

He thinks Light waits there for some kind of tearful goodbye or reaction of the like, but doesn't get one and, shortly after, leaves, fading footsteps swallowed by the carpeting. L stares at the bed. He means to climb into it, but he just stays standing there, tracing the creases with his eyes and trying to decide how to take down Light Yagami.

 

\---

 

The first thing Light has to do is figure out how much time he has. L has no proof and he isn't going to get proof, but he still poses a threat and Light is going to have to get rid of him before he embarks on a new strategy. He doesn't seem to have noticed anything different about Light yet, and so that buys him a bit of time.

A week, he'll say. Light will give himself a week to get it all out of his system, to - if he wants to use a crass saying - play with his food before he kills it. Give L one last thrill, or even a few more, before he puts him down. Today is October 29th, so if he hasn't killed L by November 5th, he'll do it that day. He pencils the date neatly into his mind, adding it to his inner-schedule. It feels very distant at the moment, almost mundane, like a dentist appointment or an errand he's been meaning to run. It's all about scheduling, about keeping his affairs in order.

With the when taken care of, that brings up the question of the _how_. Light doesn't think he'd ever fully appreciated the convenience of the Death Note, but now that he's considering other methods of judgement, it strikes him with full force and he begins measuring out the practicalities. It's all well and good to think about fucking L into an early grave - a hand around his throat, a pillow to his face, just a bit of pressure and that frail body of his could come apart - but the reality of actually killing someone in person is a bit more difficult. It's not that he doubts his resolve, is in fact rather… excited by the prospect, it's just much more complex to cover up. He'd need an alibi, he'd need to remove his fingerprints and, of course, if there's evidence of sexual activity immediately prior to the death, there would naturally be a suspicion of rape.

The whole thing is just very messy. The problem is that there is a raw and gnawing hunger deep in Light that craves messy like it does nothing else. L's name is one thing and he'll have Misa get it just for insurance, but it means very little to Light now, which is a startling contrast to before. It's the body that he sees breaking when he closes his eyes, and he doesn't think it will truly feel like a victory if he doesn't get to realize that vision.

And that aside, killing L with the Death Note feels oddly wrong. Too impersonal. Too common. L may be a criminal for defying Kira the way he does, but he's anything but common. He should have a death worthy of a man of his level.

Maybe he could write _that_ in the Death Note. Give him a proper send off. Make him do whatever Light wants before he dies. _Anything_. The idea sparkles where is forms in his mind and Light can't let it go. 

Still, he needs the name. He needs Misa. Or Rem, perhaps, but that's not important at the moment. He has a week. The question he needs to ask himself right now is, what is he going to do with this week?

 

\---

 

L's door isn't locked and it's as easy as blinking to get into the room. Unimpeded movement is a curious freedom that Light still isn't used to after being deprived of it for months on end, but he'd moved easily through the halls, navigating the building as if he owns it. L hasn't been seen downstairs and Light had been expecting to find him hunched over his screen, agonizing and obsessing, playing voyeur as usual. Finding him sprawled across the bed and very much asleep is a pleasant surprise, though one that lends a different angle to the situation when he leans in to press his lips to L's jaw, fingers skirting the edges of his shirt.

His skin is warm and he wakes with an odd start the way he always does, jerking into consciousness rather than entering it slowly, wide eyes scrambling and body going rigid against Light's. He breathes out in a huff, turning around and shoving his palm out in an upward thrust, hitting Light in the jaw.

"Fuck!"

Light catches himself on the edge of the bed, pain morphing into a thick pulse of rage as he dodges out of L's reach.

L sits up, matted hair following behind him to fall flatly across his eyes. "Sorry," he says, without a bit of inflection. He looks at Light with something sharply ungenerous in his eyes, as if his being here is a violation rather than a return to the norm. Light doesn't like it.

"I just came up to check on you," he says, sitting up and rubbing at his chin.

"With your lips?" L says, pulling his legs up to his chest. Even curled into the fetal position, he still looks oddly calm and cold, as if he's the one who had caught Light asleep - as is usual - and not the other way around.

"You've never minded before."

L doesn't respond to that and Light takes it as a cue to move closer, hand coming up to catch L's jaw in a slightly rough grip - an eye for an eye, after all - thumb stroking along the bottom of his lips. The way a lover might. Heh, _lover_. It's ridiculous, but it's also true, and made even more ridiculous by that fact. 

Light thinks about snapping his neck then and there and it sends a pulse of something through his stomach. Fantasy is not reality, though, and even if the bones snap like twigs in his mind, in truth the human body is actually rather durable. More than that, as guarded as he is now, L would probably fight back tooth and nail, and in criminal investigations defensive wounds often provide definitive evidence. Light is not some common brute and he won't sink to the level of struggling for his victory. It will come to him, in time.

A week, he tells himself. Just a week.

So instead of killing L, he kisses him, a soft pressure of the lips to drag him in. L is warm and soft with sleep and Light would just sink into him if -

L pulls away, almost absently, and glances out the window and into the black sky and bright lights of the city. "What time is it?"

"Night," Light says, settling back. "Is something wrong?"

L isn't acting different, not really, but there's something off in him. A change, as if everything has skipped a beat and they've gone from living on the same wavelength to being on completely different pages, a world away from one another. It's only as a matter of course, maybe, but it's still odd. L feels far away and Light wants him close, a solid presence to latch onto.

"What time of night?" L says, not answering the question.

Light flicks his hair out of his eyes. "I don't know. Late. Most everyone's gone home." L's gaze shifts quickly to him at that. "Just for the night."

The chain still lies folded on he bed where he had left it, where L had fallen asleep a few inches from it on top of the blankets. It glints in the light from skyscrapers, cutting a glare across the dark room. Light can't quite help himself and reaches out to pick it up, the familiar sound shooting through him like a sense memory, but even though it's only been a day since he's gotten his memory back, all of that feels very distant. Like a dream he'd had once.

 _Love_ , he'd told himself. He supposes that without the Death Note he'd had no particular purpose, no meaning to his life, and it seems that people have a habit of tricking themselves into finding meaning in other people and the sense of infatuation that can sometimes flood them. Misa is a prime example. Light hates to compare himself to her in any possible way, but in another life -

An alternate universe. That is his alternate universe, a world, a _him_ without the Death Note makes him weak and confused and susceptible to manipulation. The upside is that L's manipulated himself in the bargain, fallen for that boy without a notebook and is thus waiting there on the ground for the real Light.

It briefly strikes him that L might not feel the same about him now, but - no, no that's impossible. With the Death Note he is better and stronger and smarter in every way. Who would choose a child over a God? Not anyone of L's intelligence, surely, and anyway, it's not as if he'll be given time to deliberate over it. One week is all they have together. Light is going to make it count.

Perhaps he should be kind, perhaps he should lure L in with soft words and false promises, but L is a genius - despite his many flaws - and it doesn't take one to know what Light wants, so instead of beating around that proverbial bush, he just leans in to him, meeting those wide, deer-in-the-headlights eyes and says, "Take your clothes off."

 

\---

**one week later.**

\---

 

Even when he hasn't yet said anything, everything about Mello has a tendency to be very loud. The look on his face as Roger finishes off his speech with a thick cough and an apology is a familiar precursor to the oncoming storm. Roger coughs again, just to put it off. It rather fails to work. 

"What do you mean _'gone?'_ " he demands, hands slamming down on the desk and sending the pens ratting. "He can't be gone. He's got a fucking mass murderer to catch. Where did he go?"

His hair slopes down, framing his face in thick gold and making him look younger than he is, even as his voice gets louder with every word. If Roger hadn't already lived through plenty of Mello's tantrums, he might actually be slightly intimidated now, but it's a _boy who cried wolf_ situation. If you make a scene at every little thing - bad test score, scraped knee, not enough chocolate milk - when the time comes that an event is actually worth the dramatics, it fails to make an impression.

Roger coughs into his handkerchief again. "Language, Mello."

He glances at Near, who's reaction - or lack thereof - is also unsurprising. After over fifteen years of this, Roger is used to dealing with unbalanced geniuses.

Quillish had said once that if Mello and Near were to morph into one person, they would be more capable than even L himself, a sort of super-detective. At the time, Roger had just laughed and said how morbid a thought it was, but now he's entertaining it as very good sense.

"He's not dead," Mello insists, a frantic sort of desperation skirting the edges of his voice.

"No," Roger says," no, it's not confirmed." But he knows very well that it's clear what he believes. He'd said it was a bad idea from the start, going straight out and revealing himself to Kira, that it couldn't end well. Not to L directly, of course, but he'd conveyed the sentiment through Quillish. In typical fashion, his advice had been ignored.

"He can't be dead." Mello is shaking his head. "That's not - that can't happen. Not to L." 

The soft sound of cardboard puzzle pieces clicking into place echos familiarly throughout the room. "What do you think we're being trained for?" Near asks the floor, lolling on his stomach as usual. "It's a dangerous job. It stands to reason that L would die young. His successor will also probably meet the same fate."

Mello's hair flicks in a straight arch as he swerves around to face his classmate, hands balling into fists. Near, also as usual, does not seem impressed, and doesn't flinch at the bite in Mello's tone when he barks, "Unless you actually have something to contribute to this investigation, _shut-up._ "

"Investigation?" Near asks, looking up, but not at Mello.

Roger meets the boy's gaze. Everyone says how similar he is to L - in manner, in temperament, in brilliance - and although Roger can see the likeness, he puts little stock in it. Maybe it's because he, of all of the staff at Wammy's, has been here from the beginning. He had seen L from childhood to a fully grown man, and had, more than anything, spent a number of years with an _actual_ copy of L, who to this day strikes him as being far more accurate a reproduction than anything that Near might be, even with those deep, unreadable eyes of his.

He looks from Near to Mello to his hands where they're folded before him and sighs, shaking his head.

Mello's back at his desk then, setting all the knick-knacks within a few feet wobbling precariously. "We have to find him," he insists, eyes wide. "We're going to find him, right? He could be - he could have been kidnapped or something."

"Kira has never kidnapped anyone before," Near chimes in from the floor. Mello whips around again, spinning like a little yellow top.

"How the hell would you even know what Kira's done and not done? Are you guys pen-pals?"

"It hasn't shown up in any of the case material we've been given to review, nor has it - "

"Okay, well maybe it wasn't Kira." Mello latches onto the idea as soon as he says it and something in Roger wells up. Grief, he knows, is as desperate as it is all-consuming. "There are plenty of scumbags out there just dying to get their hands on him, maybe his identity was leaked and some random criminal found him?"

Near sighs, as if Mello's emotions are bothersome. "In that case, they would likely just kill him as well."

The way Mello's face splits with blinding rage is Roger's cue. "I swear to God, if you don't - "

" _Boys,_ " he says in his most authoritative voice. He has many voices, and although he prefers to used _kindly_ , Mello - who's existence operates through one panic attack after another - tends to bring out others. "We can't know the situation at this point. We'll wait for more information before we proceed. But, I do think it would be wise to start considering which one of you - "

"No." It sounds strange, a word so hard and immovable, spoken in a child's voice. _He's barely 15,_ Roger remembers, and watches with a thin mix of sympathy and aggravation as Mello clenches his trembling fists.

"Mello," he says calmly, "please don't interrupt."

"No." It's not an issue he's willing to be moved on, that much is clear. "Not while he's still alive. We have to find him."

He sets his bright blue eyes on Roger then, staring at him imploringly, as if this is something he could fix if only he would try. If it were as simple as a detention, as simple as allowing Mello one more chocolate bar, then this is the point where Roger would concede, but the fact is that there's simply nothing for him to do here beyond waiting for news and looking after his own side of things.

"We're doing everything we can," he says, ending the word on a cough, which he spends several seconds hacking into his handkerchief.

"Yeah, from England. We should go to Japan," Mello says. "We should go to the source."

Roger shakes his head, thinks of standing up but doesn't, just wrings his hands fitfully. "You know we can't do that."

"Why not?" Mello's anger morphs into charm suddenly, and he's grinning like a devil with a cherub's face, leaning on Roger's desk with a familiar something bright in his eyes. "We've been due for a class field trip for a while now."

Roger sighs again, rubbing at his temples. It is perhaps difficult for most grown men to argue respectfully with children without some measure of either condescension or cruelty, but he likes to think that he's had enough practice by now to manage it. "Mello," he says, with not a small amount of admiration in his voice, "your passion is inspiring, but the realities of the situation are more complicated than that, and - "

The smile drops from Mello's face and shoves off of the desk.

"Yeah," he says. "I get it." He looks down at Near, who clicks his final puzzle piece into place and gives no more reaction than that. He looks back at Roger, lip curling. "Fuck this." He's barefoot and the sound of his footfalls on the wood floors are not quite as heavy as they'd be with his usual boots on as he stomps out of the room, but the effect is virtually the same.

Roger coughs and feels that that hadn't gone as well as it could have.

"He certainly has a flair for the dramatic, doesn't he?" he says, mostly to himself. He doubts Near will appreciate any attempts at levity.

"Yes," he says, sitting up and twisting an idle hand through his hair. "Perhaps you should follow him."

Roger pushes his glasses a bit up his nose. "Why's that?"

Near picks up the puzzle and turns it upside down, letting all of the pieces fall to the floor in a thick stream, hitting the hardwood with solid sounds, and says, "Because I don't think he's going to come back."

 

\---

**tbc.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like horrible, creepy sex, because there's going to be a lot of that next chapter. I hope you like obsession and self-loathing, too - but of course you do, otherwise you wouldn't have made it this far in the fic. Also, I hope you like Mello. This story is going to have a lot of Mello at some point, assuming I can get to that point anywhere in the next thousand years. Thank you all for reading, reviewing, etc. You are all amazing human beings.
> 
> side-note: I now have a death note centered tumblr in addition to my regular tumblr (howdoyoukira.tumblr.com). Feel free to follow me if you are masochistic or else really bored. I sometimes talk about _Nights_ and sometimes talk about how WRITING IS HARD OMG!!1! but mostly I just reblog a lot of fanart.


	7. the means

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter also has quite a dub-con warning (of the super dub-con-y variety, edging into non-con.) Also, erotic asphyxiation and a fair bit of violence.
> 
> Anyway, here, have some porn!

_"I'd rather be killed by you than kept alive by any other man."_  
\- Herman Melville, _Moby Dick: or, the White Whale._

 

\---

 

Light tells him to take his clothes off and L sits there for a moment considering it, considering the fact that Kira is right here and Kira wants to fuck him and Kira really isn't as brilliant as he thinks he is.

"If it's all the same to you," L says, "I'd rather not, thanks."

He gets a harsh bark of condescending laughter in response and doesn't know why he'd expected anything more. It all feels very foreign somehow, as if Light Yagami's pretty face has been commandeered by someone else, someone who's using it to hide a particularly ugly truth. And it is ugly, isn't it? L looks at the pretty, pretty boy in front of him and sees nothing that he likes or even recognizes, just shapes that fit together to make a face, lines and curves for skin and muscle, but it's like a drawing, a statue: vacant.

He wants to put it in a box and go back to England, find a case that doesn't make him want to spit out his insides.

Light watches him, almost fondly, but there's a measure of cruelty in it, like watching a treasured dog chase its tail. "L," he says, breathing the word out like a smoke ring, thick and cloying, a pretension of seduction.

L hates the way it sounds. "You were going to tell me something yesterday," he says, just for something to do, a distraction.

He moves surreptitiously toward the opposite edge of the mattress, putting as much space between himself and Light as possible. He has a half-second flash of Light launching himself across the bed and kicking his legs apart, not asking for permission to fuck him long and deep and horrible. It would hurt, it would tear him in half, and a part of L thinks that it's what he wants most from this situation. There's a gnawing nothing in his gut and he wants Light to give him a reason to be angry, to hate, to want to destroy Kira once and for all.

As it is, he doesn't really care about the case anymore, just wants to get the fuck out of here.

So, a part of him - one that's growing fast - thinks, _okay, hurt me_. But the part of him in control of his mouth just thinks, _distraction distraction distraction, anything to keep him away_ , so he says, "I want to know what you were going to tell me."

Light frowns, like he doesn't remember. L wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't. Everything that had been there before is gone.

Light just shrugs, following him across the bed. "It was probably to take your clothes off."

It's almost like L had written the script and blocked all the movements, because it goes just the way he'd imagine, Light grabbing his jaw in a rough hand to pull him into a kiss that tastes sharp and feels like nothing. L can't even muster enough emotion to feel sick.

"Light," he says, when he's shoved onto his back. Light doesn't grab his arm, goes straight for his leg, finger pads digging through his jeans, gripping to bruise and L groans with the feel of it. "Tell me - " he grits, sitting back up.

Light knocks him down. L sits back up just so that Light will do it again. Asks for answers just to hear Light deny them. He remembers this feeling, this empty, weightless, out-on-the-sea feeling where all of his thoughts devolve into the same thing and then it's just _hurt me, hurt me, hurt me_ over and over again. _Hurt me so that I have room to kill you._

"Tell me," he grunts.

Light grips his hair, tugs his head back, practically pulling out his scalp. "I don't remember," he says, voice hard.

L's eyes water. "Make something up," he says, as Light bears down on him, holding him to the mattress, hands going for his zipper. He strips him, grabs and knocks and maneuvers, tells him to _shut-up._ "I'm sure it'll be great. You're very articulate."

Light kisses him so hard he thinks it will bruise, crushing him into the cushions, practically suffocating him, hands going from his shoulders to his neck and jaw and lips and throat and this is Kira, _this is Kira_ , and he could kill L and he should kill L and wouldn't that be just a riot? A brilliant fucking twist ending. Bam, gone, killed in bed. The world's greatest detective lets the world's greatest murderer fuck him to death. It's poetic in the way that L hates, such an unbearably _stupid_ end to an unbearably _stupid_ detective story.

_Love story,_ Light had said, but that Light is gone and was a bit of an idiot, besides.

"You have a great vocabulary, too," L gasps, when Light takes a break from doing lewd, wet this to his mouth to bite at his neck, fingers twisting his nipples a little too hard to feel good, but just enough to make L's insides thrash around in his body, make him want to flood himself and drown with the wreckage. It's so pathetic and it's been so long and why does L always fall for the people most likely to kill him?

He's such a smart man and it's such an easy, easy answer, but he doesn't think it, _doesn't -_

"I'm going to fuck you," Light grits into his ear, biting at the lobe.

"I'm sure I didn't realize."

Light huffs a laugh, pinning L's hands above his head and L lets them be pinned. He tells himself he's only going along with it to buy himself time, to keep up the charade, but his head thrills with it, with being held down, with being in the grip of Death himself - even if Death is more used to gripping a pen. Truthfully, he doesn't know why Light's doing it. Maybe he thinks that L hasn't realized the change or maybe he really does like the way it feels or maybe -

"Maybe I'll kill you," Light says, shoving L's jeans off his hips and down his legs, stripping his fully and pulling back to look down at him, the half-sneer on his face obscured slightly by arousal. "Shame I'm not Kira."

L's head goes blurry with the words and he wishes that they could whittle everything down to just this, cut all the pretenses away and just be L and Kira, fucking and at each other's throats, but there's just so much, too much, too complex for L's hazy, lust-stricken mind to process and he wants Light to fuck him and he wants to die, maybe - just for a while. Just for a little while, like a dreamless sleep. He can close his eyes until the war is over and maybe it will all be better.

"You'd like me to do it, though, wouldn't you?" Light whispers, and it works like some very fucked up dirty talk. "You're so frail," - a hand down L's ribs, fingers at his wrists, - "I could snap you in half. Would you like that, L?"

And what does one say to that, really? _Yes, please kill me_ or, _no, I'd rather you didn't._ He doesn't know the answer. He exists according to things he should say, the answers he ought to give - to win the game, to catch the crook - and he knows that's what Light is asking for now, a little spin back on the board, but he wonders, just wonders, what he would truly say if he had the option.

_I don't know._ World's greatest detective, one of the most brilliant minds of the century, and he can't even answer this simple question.

Light doesn't seem to care. L's shirt is off and Light is on him and he almost wants to go, to be out of his mind for this - and not because he doesn't like it, but because he likes it a bit too much. All the bad, wrong things are here for the taking and L wants them. He wants Light, Kira, whoever is here and touching him with quick, warm hands. He doesn't want to look at him or speak to him or think of the last three months, but he wants to be fucked by him.

"L," Light says, likes he's forgotten all about _Ryuzaki_ , like there was never anything else.

"Kira," L breathes back. There never has been anything else.

Light stops, pulling back to look at him with eyes wide enough to challenge L's own. Then, slowly, his lip curls and his teeth show and maybe it's the gauntlet being thrown down and maybe it's not, but either way there's a bite in his voice when he says, "Oh, I see. That's what you want."

L doesn't know what _that_ is, assumes that it probably is what he wants, but means to put in a bit of protest all the same, just to keep himself from dying - because, really, there's a difference between the metaphorical plea for death and the actual end of a life, the _kill me, kill me_ of the mind is more of a poetical exclamation than a realistic one, an understandable expression of turmoil that may not apply properly to actual facts, but which communicates the sentiment nonetheless and -

And L feels a handcuff lock around his wrist with a familiar click.

He'd had the chain special ordered from a manufacturer in Russia who had asked very few questions about an industrial strength piece of bondage equipment being needed in a length of six feet, and so he knows it as well as he knows any tools of the trade, knows it's what's on him without even having to look. It's on the opposite wrist - it was usually on his left - and it feels foreign, despite him having had the thing on him more or less constantly for almost three months.

"Kinky, Light-kun," he says, narrowing his eyes.

Light cups his chin. He's sitting on L's thighs, crushing him to the bed, so L has to tilt his face up in order for their eyes to meet. It reeks of power imbalance and he's sure that Light is having a terribly fun time establishing such, puffing up his ego to imperishable heights. He strokes L's face and the touch tingles down his body and into his bloodstream and it's pathetic, really. He's hard and he's naked and he's half-chained to a bed by one of the most prolific mass murderers in history and he really has no intention of stopping it. He's been here before, put himself in the same sort of position, but he'd always had a plan, an endgame, and now -

Now Light is wrapping the chain around the headboard, the way he'd done to Light more than once before for security reasons, and latching the other handcuff around L's other wrist. He should fight, should stop this, should come up with some course of action. Should.

He should, but he doesn't, and Light just kisses him with too much tongue and plays his fingertips in soft circles over L's hips, warm breath tingling over his ear.

"I'm just doing what you want me to do," he whispers, then pauses for a minute or two to suck marks into the skin of L's neck, the material of his slacks brushing maddeningly over his body, and L can't stop his hips from jerking up slightly. "I'm always doing what you want me to do, aren't I?" Light says.

The look on his face says he's waiting for an answer, but as soon as L opens his mouth to give him one, Light wraps a firm hand around L's cock and gives him a long squeeze, sending L's eyes back in his head and the words far away from his tongue. He thinks he makes a terribly humiliating noise, but can't be bothered to care, either way.

He has a plan, he has a plan, this is all according to plan, he just needs to be allowed to think for a moment and then he can sort himself out. Light doesn't give him a moment, though, doesn't give him anything but several rough jerks and L meets his hand with every one because he wants to come, wants the fog over his head the be lifted, wants to wet his dry throat with clever words, but he can't, he can't and Light's not going to let him.

He takes some of the slack from the chain in his free hand, pulling it so that the cuffs dig deep into L's wrists and then loops the excess quickly around L's neck, wrapping it tight around his throat and cutting his air supply down to a scant sliver. Then he pulls even tighter, and it's gone.

L's mind fuzzes with a sharp, pleasantly horrible feeling and he might come and he might die and he can't seem to decide which one makes his arousal spark more.

 

\---

 

He'd be on the bed, even paler than usual, chain still around his neck and on his wrists, his own come spilled on his stomach, dried on his thighs and his hips and the crisp, white bedsheets. They'd call the police - even if they probably wouldn't, Light imagines that they would - and they'd send down a crime scene photographer who would take pictures of body. The come and the sweat and the desperation in his dull, dead eyes. They'd go into files, into the system. Maybe they'd even make the papers.

He can see the headline: _World's Greatest Detective Dead at 24 of Autoerotic Asphyxiation._

No one would suspect Light. Some would say that L had used the handcuff chain simply because it was handy. Others would whisper that there had been symbolism to it, that he had been thinking about Light, that he had choked himself on purpose because of his forbidden lust - or some equally ridiculous harlequin drivel about passion and suffering and pretentious things like that.

Light could do it, could kill him, could watch him die right now. The thought makes him so hard he can barely think straight, and he ends up sprawled across L's white-glass body, face tucked into his neck, hands curving up his ribs, trying to fight off the glorious mental images. He's probably leaving DNA all over him, probably ruining any chances of making a clean getaway, but there's a part of him that still wants to do it, could do it, would do it, but -

But he doesn't. Color floods into L's face as he loosens the chain - still exerting pressure, but not enough to kill him - and he coughs slightly, catching his breath, all glassy-eyed and completely pathetic. Light should kill him just to put him out of misery, but he has a week, a _whole week_ of this to look forward to, and he's not going to throw that away so soon. He can kill L every night for seven days, if only in his head, and fuck him seven different ways and have him begging for it by the end, begging for mercy.

For justice.

Light groans, is going to come in his clothes if he's not careful, so he unbuttons his pants just enough to get some relief, grinding his hips forward into L's almost involuntarily, and fuck, it's so good.

_Condoms, lube,_ he thinks. Can't leave behind evidence, much as he'd like to, much as he'd like for L to have to clean himself out and remember being fucked and used and destroyed, because Light is going to fuck and use and destroy him. L wants it, it's so obvious. He knows what he is, knows what he deserves, knows the monster ought to be slain by the prince in any good story.

L's legs open easy for him and Light shoves his fingers in a bit too roughly and L tries to sit up, but he's held down by the chain still around his neck - practically a collar, a bridle for the beast - and he gives a thin, keening noise that makes Light's eyes roll and his cock jerk. If he's not careful, L will end up killing himself, and wouldn't that be the best thing? L offering himself up, truly and fully, with every understanding of what he's doing. Complete surrender, a tithe to a new God.

Light's mind thrills and he grabs L's legs, pulling them open and shoves so close he could be in him in a second, the head of his cock pressed to the crease between L's legs, just barely exerting pressure. It's a tease, and L's face is flushed warm, a welcome change to his usual blank, white stoicism. Without his memories Light had been so wishy-washy and romantic that he'd let L have the upper-hand even when being penetrated, let him steer things, have it however he wanted. Now he's given no choice, no chance to even dare ask, not with his air supply so limited and his dick so hard, beginning to leak against his stomach.

Light shifts his hips, shoving L's legs open wider, and they spread with little resistance. Light sinks in easy and he wonders, for a moment, pressed so close to something so difficult to understand - genius that he is - whether or not he might have done it all wrong, and whether he might do it differently, were he allowed another go.

Then L makes a half-garbled groaning sound and Light wonders how tight he can get the chain around his throat without him passing out, and any hint of self-doubt gets washed away in a torrent of irrepressible arousal that swims through his head on a tidal wave.

"L," he says, because no other words will come and he has to say something, has to make him understand. " _L._ "

This is right, this must be right, how things ought to be. Ryuk said that the Death Note had only landed in front of him by chance, but that's ridiculous, in the same way that it's impossible to believe that the world's greatest detective just _happens_ to have black owl-eyes and gaunt ribs and pretty, crooked fingers, just _happens_ to be the best Go player Light has ever met and able to quote all of Light's favorite lines of Shakespeare off the top of his head and argue metaphysics and suck cock like a pro. There are only so many people in the world, so many tiny, little insignificant people, and it's not as if Light believes in things like true love and destiny and the like, but he knows that chance can only account for so much, and no measurable force in the universe can account for L. There is no theorem that explains how the thin skin of his eyelids looks during the few hours that he sleeps, like the wing of a moth, fragile and easily-torn, nothing to explain why when he chokes and splutters with the chain around his neck, Light immediately loosens it, chest thudding with the idea that he could go away and be dead and gone.

Light has killed thousands of people and they have faded like nothing, but L is different. L is important in ways that other people don't know how to be, a piece of the puzzle, a character in the new New Testament. He is not here by chance, not gasping and rattling his chains and kicking his feet out under Light because of a set of random circumstances. It's meant to be, it's _necessary_.

L is necessary.

He's jerking under Light like a cornered animal and he has to hold him down, catching his legs and keeping them still, thrusting in closer and harder and with little self-control, thinks he hears a cry of something like pain, maybe should have used more lube, but he doesn't care, doesn't care, couldn't care if the room caught fire - and that scares him a little bit, the idea that he can't stop, but not enough to phase him, not enough to throw off his rhythm. His fingernails dig into L's hipbones and he lets out a strangled gasp against his neck and comes quietly inside of him.

He goes still. L has been still for a while, presumably to keep from choking himself to death. Light thinks about untying him but doesn't, head still pleasantly hazy.

It can't have been more than a few minutes, though he fades in and out, before Light's pocket starts buzzing where it's slung low on his hips. He grunts, sits up, and pulls out his phone. _Misa_ , of course. He rolls his eyes. He'd ignore it if he could, but he needs to keep her happy if he wants things with L to go as planned, so he answers in his most pleasant and least winded voice.

"Hello?"

L is staring at him, glassy-eyed and blank, but his erection hasn't gone down and he's stopped struggling with the chains. He looks beaten and pathetic and rather like something Light would keep locked up in closet for the rest of forever if he could afford to.

"Light!" Misa squeals, the way she squeals about everything. He often wants to tell her that he'd be much more likely to fall in love with her if she would _shut-up_ for five seconds at a time. "Where are you? What are you doing? Are you busy tomorrow? There's this new place across from my apartment and - "

"I'm just at headquarters, Misa. I'm finishing up some work." He looks L up and down as he says it, tries not to let his smirk show in his voice. "I don't have time to go out tomorrow, but why don't you come by? You can't come in, but we could see each other for a bit. I'm sure L wouldn't mind."

Misa squeals some more and Light tunes it out, using his free hand to swirl tiny patterns on the inside of one of L's pale thighs, tracing the muscles with the tips of his fingers. Eventually Misa squeals her way off the line and Light hangs up.

"Sorry about that," he says.

L just stares at him with those wide eyes, saying nothing. Light rolls his own, moving to climb back on top of him. He means to jerk him off and then let him free, maybe have a shower together, but he hates whatever quiet, unspoken thing is in L's face at the moment and wants to force it out. His fingers move across his thigh and instead of touching his cock, he ignores it completely, going back between his legs to slip inside, easy and slick. L's face does change then, draining even further of emotion, even as his pupils dilate and his breathing gets heavy again, and fuck, he loves this, doesn't he? Light is treating him like nothing, like an afterthought, like a _whore_ \- yes, as it turns out, he does like that word - and L is absolutely eating it up.

His legs slip further open of their own accord and Light fingers him deeper, not touching him anywhere else, not kissing his thin, chapped lips the way he's tempted to, just finger-fucking him with a look of vague interest on his face. He thinks about calling Misa back during, just because of how much it would humiliate L, but decides that it isn't worth it to have to listen to her shrieking again, and just twists his fingers and shoves them deep.

L comes without Light once touching his cock and his eyes don't close and his face barely changes, mouth opening a little wider and back arching and breath stuttering, but he doesn't moan or whimper or cry out the way Light loves to hear him do, just spills across his stomach and rattles the chains slightly. Light pulls his fingers out, wiping them on the bedsheets, and then goes to release him with a small click of the key, folding the chain up neatly and setting it back on the bed.

L doesn't move and doesn't speak and Light thinks the whole thing is rather tiring, so eventually just leans in and pecks him on the mouth. "I'm going to go have a shower," he says casually, standing to do up his trousers.

"In your own room?" L says quietly.

He's acting rather strange, but Light doesn't think much of it. "Yes, yes," he says, ruffling L's dark hair with one hand. "You should probably get some more sleep in the meantime." He flicks off the lamp as he goes out, soft steps padding against the carpeting. "Night."

 

\---

 

L doesn't remember making the decision to get up but in the next moment he's standing in the middle of the room, so he must have. He moves to go turn the light back on, but instead picks up the lamp and hurls it across the room.

It hits the wall with a crash of glass and ceramic and L watches it fall to pieces. A fully functional piece of equipment - thanks to the much esteemed Edison, or rather more accurately, Tesla - one second, the next, rubble and scrap. Things become useless at a moment's notice, completely destroyed in the blink of an eye and no one really pays attention, no one sorts the wreckage. There are no men in white coats keeping track of all the lamps that break and what happens to the pieces, where they go, but human beings are always breaking things, absolutely destroying the things around them and where do all the lost, left over parts go? Into the landfill outside of New York City so big that it can be seen from space? Into the dirt?

L hates dirt. Roger used to put him in clean white tennis shoes and send him out to play with B and A on spring mornings. B used to take his shoes and socks off and crawl around in the mud, like a little beast. L had hated the tennis shoes, but he'd hated the dirt more. He'd started studying chemical decomposition before he could ride a bike, but he still didn't like the dirt. It had seemed very low and animal, beneath him. He'd been such a bright boy, everyone had said.

B used to throw mud-pies at him, staining his clean white shirts.

He looks down at himself, at the semen drying on his stomach and feels strangely distanced from it, like it's somebody else's semen on somebody else's stomach. He's done this clean-up routine so many times before, but he's sure he must have been somebody else all those other times, too.

The room is dark and he's broken the lamp, so he goes into the bathroom and flips on the fluorescents. They're bright and he squints up at them. He should take a quick shower and then go back to work, has so much to do. After all, Kira's not going to incarcerate himself. Not twice in a row. Instead he plugs up the tub and begins filling the bath.

He stands there, watching the water rise. There's a knock at the door that doesn't wait for an answer and then someone is coming into the room.

_He's back,_ is L's first thought, and he can't properly understand why his instinctual reaction is to turn off the Light and pretend that he's not here. It's not him, though, not by the smell of the perfume, which is too flowery to be Light's cologne and not flowery enough to be Aiber's. Wedy's heels click on the tile when she reaches the bathroom.

"L," she says, coming around the doorway, "are you alive in there? I heard - "

She stops. Maybe it's because he's naked and maybe it's just something in his manner, because he feels hazy and half-together, like a lot of time had passed in between Light telling him to take his clothes off and Light kissing him goodnight.

"Watari," he says, without turning around. "Can you get me Watari."

If it were Aiber, he'd be yelling. He'd be demanding to know what _"that little shit"_ has done now, would be cleaning L off and jerking him around with his large hands, and giving him heavy, imploring glances, and promises to break heads open if needed. L is glad that it's not Aiber. He would try to help, but he would only get in the way.

Wedy is more subtle. "Are you alright?" she says, walking further into the room. The click-click-click of her shoes is unbearable and L wishes she would take them off. She's referring, of course, to the state of him. One word from him and she'd have Light back here and bleeding from several orifices. She doesn't say it, but it doesn't need to be said.

L turns around, giving her the full view. She frowns, tries not to show whatever she's feeling in her face, and he tries not to see it.

"Don't give me that look," he says, with something that, if he put a little more into it, might be a smile. "You know I'm an old pro at this. I just need to change around a few of my strategies. Please bring me Watari."

She watches him for a second longer. "Yeah, okay."

Once she's gone, L turns the tap off. Without the rushing of the water loud in the background, the room seems very large and very silent. He's not used to bathing alone. He sinks down into the water, legs curled under his chin, and tries to think. It's very hot and he feels very dirty. He thinks that must have been Light's intention. He thinks, but - he doesn't _know_ Light's intentions. He hadn't even known his own intentions, back there. _To be or not to be_ \- it had been one of those, anyway. He'd had a plan and he'd followed it to a point, but he'd been afraid, very afraid. He'd felt weak and small and conquered, which are things that he has never been, has no capacity to be. He's done this dozens of time, with dozens of people. He'd let them have their way, let them _destroy_ him if they'd wanted to, but he'd always had a plan, and in the end, he'd always come up on top.

So then, he has to come out on top. Light can throw all the mud-pies he likes; L will catch them and re-serve.

When Watari comes in L is sitting curled up in the bath, bubbles surrounding him like an impenetrable fortress. He pulls up a chair and a little side table and sets out tea for two. L isn't thirsty. He watches the bubbles fizz out for a long moment.

"Do you think I'm pathetic?" he asks the echoing hollows of the room after a while, not looking up.

Watari's voice is kind and stern. "I think you're brilliant."

L snorts. "Are those two things really mutually exclusive?"

Watari doesn't answer, just stirs his tea and then mixes sugar into L's, since it seems as if he's not going to do it himself. "Have you eaten since Higuchi's capture?" he asks.

It's L's turn to ignore a question, and he just goes back to making towers and turrets out of the bubbles. Watari sighs and stands up, going back into the bedroom to pick up L's clothes and fold them neatly to take down to the laundry, then brings him a large, fluffy towel out of the linen closet and sets it down within his reach. They are both silent for a bit longer, L doing little to clean or groom himself - Light has been shampooing his hair for him of late - and trying to decide what he means to do about all of this.

He's not sure how much Watari knows or has guessed - there aren't camera's in this room, so he cant be certain of anything - but he hopes it's not much. Aside from being a lot of trouble, this whole situation is mostly just embarrassing. The idea that he can't handle himself, that some puffed-up little boy with a magical notebook can make him feel weak and small and out of control is _disgusting_. He is disgusted - with himself, with Light, with the way he'd kicked and fought, with how afraid he'd been, if only for one short moment.

L has had many things done to him for the sake of his investigations, but he'd gone through them with steely resolve, suffered the arrows and slings with dignity. He feels very young now. He feels 24. Or maybe like an anorexic 18-year-old.

Light had said that to him. God, he misses Light. L never misses anybody, but he misses Light.

"I need you to keep the taskforce occupied tomorrow morning, in my absence," he says finally, looking down at his hands. They're starting to prune.

Watari's mustache bristles and he nods shortly. He stands and, after a pause, says, "You're not going to _kill_ the boy, are you?"

L pops bubbles with the tips of his fingers and smiles quite unkindly, feels unkind. "Oh no," he says. "I'd never dream of doing such a thing without you there." If Watari hears the bite in his voice, as he surely does, he makes no mention, nodding again with a narrow look in his eye, and leaving. He shuts the door behind him.

L stays in the bath long after the water goes cold.

 

\---

 

Quillish takes L's comment about Matsuda being put in charge of the Death Note as a joke and locks it in one of the security vaults. Matsuda is, of course, very disappointed, but everyone else looks rather relieved. L is out of sorts and already working hard enough on one avenue of investigation; he hasn't time to take care of all of the loose ends. That's what Quillish is for. L looks after the world, but Quillish looks after L and always has done. Or, has at least since his late forties.

L is at once like a small child and a God, though he hates to be compared to either of those things. He is utterly fallible, but unrelenting. He can and has been knocked down plenty of times, but he always gets back up again with tougher skin and colder eyes. He is a blunt instrument honed into sharp metal and he can do absolutely anything. Quillish doesn't trust L as far as he can throw him, knows not to believe a word of what comes out of his mouth on a daily basis, but he has complete faith in him. Like a father would his son, or a man his God.

So he makes sure that no one on the investigation team goes near the basement levels or wonders where L and Light have got off to. He deletes the security footage seconds after it's recorded.

L will tell him all about it later. Or maybe he won't, but it doesn't truly matter. Quillish has a job to do.

 

\---

 

He wakes with tape over his mouth.

He kicks out, legs going up and jerking around wildly, as someone cuffs his hands behind his back. The metal is cold and familiar on his wrists, but it's too short to be _the_ chain. That's his first clue that it's not L. The second is the fact that someone's cursing at him in French. He knows that L speaks French - and English and German and Chinese and Spanish and Arabic and virtually everything else one could possibly speak - but he doesn't often use it without cause.

The third and most damning clue is blinking up at Aiber's smug face right before a blindfold is shoved over his eyes. He's jerked up from the bed and begins to kick again, but then he feels something cold pressed against his side and Wedy's smoke-stained voice casually saying, "You've got plenty of inessential limbs. Don't make me put a bullet in one."

He goes still, sense of self-preservation taking over, even as his mind skips through possible avenues of escape, running though all of his options, looking for a way out. She won't shoot him, not really. L wouldn't - this is L's doing, of course, and L wouldn't want him dead. Not like this, anyway. They march him quietly down a hall and then presumably into an elevator. He can just see out of the bottom of his blindfold and the floor tiles are unfamiliar, so he assumes they're in some part of the massive building that he hasn't yet been to.

"Do you have to wave that thing around?" Aiber grunts, presumably to Wedy, but she just _hmmphs_ and mumbles that she needs a cigarette, gun still trained on Light.

The elevator dings and they take him down another hall and then left - he maps it all out in his head, just in case - and set him in a chair, securing him to it with another set of chains. L's really fond of overly elaborate interrogative bondage, isn't he? Absolutely fucked in the head. Light sits there, feet tapping, almost enthused by the situation. Then, out of nowhere, a heavy fist slams into his jaw, catching the edge of his mouth. He groans and it tastes like pennies.

The tape is ripped off.

"What the hell are you doing?" he chokes out, blood from his split lip dripping down onto his chin. He struggles, testing his bonds, but they hold as well as L's chains always have. He means to yell some sort of abuse, but he's caught in the stomach, the blow ricocheting through his gut and making him rock with sickness.

He's going to vomit, he's actually going to vomit.

"What - "

"Easy there, boy," Aiber says lowly, hand coming down to stay his shoulders. Then the blindfold is pulled off, though not with particular kindness, and Light blinks at the contrasting brightness. _He's going to vomit._

Wedy is there, tapping an unlit cigarette against her lips. L is to her left, curled up in chair opposite Light and watching him without expression. He's dressed in his usual clothes, but over them he wears a heavy brown coat that looks like it was designed for someone twice his size. Aiber shoots a questioning glance at him and Light watches L nod soberly. Then he feels a sharp kick to shin and he can't help the grunt of pain that slips out, almost knocking over his chair in his fit to get as far away from Aiber as possible. His eyes water involuntarily and if he had his Death Note he'd kill them all right now. If he had his hands free he'd strangle L the way he ought to have yesterday, L who's just watching on, unfazed, as if he and Light are perfect strangers.

Another nod. Aiber hits him again.

Light lets out something that sounds suspiciously like a half-sob, but it's not real, it's not real. Let them think they're succeeding, let them think he's beaten, but he's _not_. He is God and L is -

"Stop." L's voice is very loud in the wide room, drowning out Light's heavy breaths. Aiber stops immediately. He had been grinning back in Light's bedroom, but he's not now. "Go," L says. Wedy walks out of the room without a pause, lighting her cigarette as she goes. After a moment and a long look at L, Aiber follows her.

L stares at Light and Light stares at L.

Light's jaw aches and his stomach turns and he doesn't understand why L is doing this to him. He narrows his eyes and spits out some blood, just daring L to lay a hand on him without his bodyguard around. L doesn't move.

"I'm going to tell you a story," he says. "You're always asking about me, about my history, so I'm going to tell you."

That had certainly not been what Light had been expecting, but he doesn't interrupt. He's too shell-shocked to come up with words suitably eloquent enough to explain how _fucking furious_ he is.

L clears his throat, a keen, unreadable look in his eye. "My mother died during childbirth and I spent my early years in a children's poor house in a small town in England," he begins, and Light clenches his teeth. "I went to work picking oakum when I was nine and - "

"That's _Oliver Twist,_ " he says, barely restraining an eye-roll. A part of him wants to laugh, and maybe he would if his gut wasn't aching and his head didn't feel as if it had been put on backwards.

"Oh," L says. "You're right. I do get he and I confused sometimes. Let's see." He tugs on his lip with an errant finger. "In truth, I was raised by my older sister and her husband. He was a blacksmith and I apprenticed for him until I came into a good deal of money from a - "

Light turns his snort into a cough. " _Great Expectations,_ " he says, realizing that L is, for lack of a better word, teasing him. "Why all the Dickens?"

"You'd prefer something else? Ahem. _'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of good - '_ "

There's a grim sort of hilarity to the situation, Light grabbed from his bed, tied to a chair on an abandoned floor all so that L could quote _Pride and Prejudice_ at him. In the first place, he knows for a fact that L isn't overly fond of Austen - _"More of a Bronte sort,"_ he'd told him, during one of their late nights - and in the second, there doesn't seem to be any point to it, other than to shake him up. L may be unreasonable, but he's not incompetent. He has to have a purpose.

Perhaps to bore him to death.

Maybe Light will look back on this moment with fond amusement after L is dead, but it's hard to muster any sort of good feeling toward him while tasting his own blood in his mouth.

"Are we going to play 'guess L's favorite books' all day," he snaps, "or can you throw me in a cell and be done with it?"

He doesn't actually expect L to incarcerate him, and throws it down as an option just to completely rule it out. After all, L's plan is surely to shake him up as much as possible. He's not going to do something that he thinks Light will expect, but Light knows enough by now to expect _anything_. L is not above anything.

_"Then what is the difference between you and Kira?"_ Light has asked, _before._

Among other things, at least Kira has some fucking decorum.

L scratches his head lazily with two fingers, then stands up. The coat shifts slightly with the movement and Light's attention catches on a few faint marks around his neck. From last night, he realizes, and can't decide if he feels guilty or self-satisfied, until the throbbing in his jaw decides it for him. At least the chain had been good for something.

L paces the length of the small room. It looks like more like a disused office than a cell, although the only pieces of furniture are the chair Light's in and the one L's just vacated. L had paced often, when they'd been chained together, and often Light had had to pace with him simply as a matter of course.

L tips his head back to stare at the ceiling, as if his lines are written up there. "I really do have a story to tell you," he says, after circling the room several times over. "But it's not about me."

"You said it was," Light tells him, trying to sound bored and and unconcerned.

"I lied. It's a thing I do. Keep up." L's still talking to the ceiling. Light wants to bash his head in with a blunt object. "This is a story about names. Or rather, about a young man who knew people's names. Everyone's. As soon as he met them."

Light freezes.

"I know," L says, nodding without looking at him, "it seems like a cheap party trick, but it's true. Even names that were never spoken, names that were nowhere on file anywhere in the whole world. He just knew them." He flicks his eyes toward Light, muscles not shifting an inch. "That remind you of anyone?"

He thinks for a second that L is talking about him, that it's just another _I know you're Kira_ ploy, but L doesn't say it accusatorially so much as curiously, and anyway, the evidence that L has at his disposal would lead him to a different conclusion.

"The Second Kira, maybe," Light says, after a moment, like he's followed the same line of thought. The original Kira needs a name and a face, the Second only a face. Does L know about the eyes? No, he can't. Rem wouldn't have said and Misa doesn't even have her memories yet. Light had meant to give her the instructions tomorrow. Today? He doesn't even know what time it is or how long he'd been asleep. L could have drugged him or -

No. No, he has to stay calm. He clears his throat. "So, you've decided that it's a man, then? That must mean Misa's in the clear."

"On the contrary," L says, probing eyes locked on Light. "Misa is very far from being in the clear. And I'm not talking about the Second Kira, I'm talking about someone I know to be 100% separate from all of the Kiras. Someone Kira has never met or heard of. But, if the Second Kira does have the ability to instinctively know anyone's name, then she - " Light begins to protest " - or _he_ must have gotten it from the Death Note, correct?" L doesn't give Light time to answer. "So, it stands to reason that this young man must also have a Death Note, does it not?"

All the muscles in Light's neck go tense and hard and no, he's lying, he's lying - there's no way there's someone else out there with a Death Note. How would L even know? He'd only found out about the notebook two days ago. He knows nothing, he's just making things up, trying to scare Light, panicking. He knows Light is going to kill him - must have realized yesterday, the chain had been too much, too far - and he's trying to save himself.

"Don't worry," L says, catching Light's expression. "He doesn't pose any threat to us. Not yet, anyway."

Light sits there for a long time, trying to decide what to say to that. Should he ask questions? Would it be too suspicious? Would it be suspicious not to?

"Did you have to tie me up and beat me in order to tell me that?" he asks, after a moment, letting his body deflate in the chair, trying to make it obvious to L that he's no threat at the moment and that it's fine to let him go. He assumes that his father and the other investigators haven't been told about this situation, because if they had L would never have gotten away with setting Aiber on him little a rabid dog. So it's just him and L on the playing field, as it should be.

"No," L says, walking over to stand in front of him, "that was for last night."

It takes a moment for Light to understand what he means - last night had been good, had been so good - but his eyes flit to the marks on L's neck and he thinks maybe everything looks a little different from the morning after.

L starts walking again, passes him by and heads for the door.

"What, are you embarrassed or something?" Light calls, just to make him stop. It works. "Is that what this is about? Pissed because the tables were turned for just a few minutes and suddenly you were the one without any power?" He's almost glad he's tied to a chair; it lends a lot of weight to his argument.

L turns around on him so fast that Light's almost sure he'll knock himself down with the force of it.

"Don't," he whispers, voice a thin sliver of something torrential, "speak to me about power. Not as you are. Not as Light Yagami."

Light doesn't know what that's even supposed to mean. He is Light Yagami and Light Yagami is Kira and Kira is him - but to L there seems as if there's some sort of disconnect, like he's drawn a visible line into what they were before and what they are now. But it's not different, not really. Light's only regained his memories, not suffered some sort of Jekyll and Hyde switch where's he become a completely different person. His principles aren't changed, they're just more clear now. Still, it stands to reason that L wouldn't want to believe otherwise, would want to salvage some form of self-respect by denying that the boy he'd been so fond of these past few months is the same one who's spun the world on it's head, changed all the rules.

L stands there for a moment, body taut and tall, before he shakes his head and pulls out a key, curling down to unlock Light's chains with steady hands. First the ankles, then the wrists. 

"I really would like to talk to you," he says as he works, making _you_ sound like something new, something separate, "larger than life force of justice to larger than life force of justice." He looks up at Light, eyes steady and less cruel than they'd been a moment ago. "But you have to take off the mask first. I'm not going to argue with someone who doesn't exist."

Light almost smiles at him. Instead, he shoves out of the chair and grabs L by the throat of his ugly brown coat, stumbling them half across the room and drawing his fist back.

"Make it good," L says, right before Light punches him in the face.

It hurts his fist and it hurts him to stand, right shin aching and stomach still rolling. His lip has stopped bleeding but he doesn't doubt that any pronounced twist of expression will crack it open again. L doesn't make a sound of pain, doesn't try to stop him, and when Light pulls back and lets him go, he just slumps into the wall rather casually and rubs at the skin of his jaw.

"Now we'll match," he says, nodding at Light's lip. "I'm sure the taskforce won't find it overly suspicious."

Given the number of fistfights they've gotten into since first being chained together, Light thinks he's probably right. Although, the damage is a little more extensive this time and so, mostly just because his body aches and he's pissed off, he says, "I could show them the rest." He pulls up his shirt. There's a mark purpling on his abdomen. "Show them what you did to me."

L looks at his bare skin, face blank.

"And I coat unzip this coat and show them the bruises around my neck," he says, voice an even mumble, emotion locked out.

He keeps it on, though.

Light doesn't like that, so after a moment he moves in closer, backing L into the wall and tugging down the zipper with careful fingers. He more than expects to be shoved away, but L lets him open the coat up far enough to see the marks, to see the way they paint him in pinks and and light purples. For some reason, it has the effect of making L seem less fragile than he normally does, even backed against the wall as he is. Like he can withstand anything that Light can throw at him.

Light sort of wants to kiss him, but he doesn't think it will go over well, so he just reaches out, the tips of his fingers hovering over the marks.

After a silence that probably lasts too long, he says, "And I could tell them how much you liked it." He speaks softly, letting his breath puff out over L's face, but he doesn't fade into it like he usually does, doesn't bend to Light's body. Apparently he's abandoned whatever role he's been playing all this time, or maybe - maybe it hadn't truly been a role. Maybe that's the problem.

"Because you did," Light continues, lips so close that he could press them to L's neck, to his jaw and ear and shoulder. "That's why you're angry, isn't it? You like to be hurt, to be wrecked. You like to let people wreck you." He says the words into the cool line of L's throat, makes the skin shivers slightly beneath his lips. L's eyes are clouded over and the look in them is halfway between angry and terrified. "I'm not the Judas to your tormented savior," Light bites out, "but you love to think that, don't you? Want to be a martyr so badly, L?"

Light draws the back of his hand along Light's face. L takes in a breath and doesn't let it out.

"All you have to do is wait."

 

\---

 

He has Aiber and Wedy escort Light back up to his room because he can't manage it himself. That feeling is back, that feeling like he wants to drink an entire bottle of gin or throw himself out of a window. Just fall to the ground, spine breaking and skull cracking and muscles loose and useless forever after. The end of the show, curtains go down. No one claps.

Although, Light is right - if L really wants to die, all he has to do is wait. Just do nothing until the hammer of justice knocks him down.

And it's a terrifying thought, because he should do something - _anything_ \- but he can't seem to make himself move.

 

\---

 

Light has to kill L.

Light _has_ to. All of his plans hinge on this one event. He kills L, and then everything works out. That's how it goes. The story has already been planned out in his head for ages, he sees it all, how it will go down in the history books. An enemy vanquished. The end of an era of false justice.

The end of L's thin mouth and his gaunt shoulders and his aborted laughs and quiet, rambling murmurs in the dark. The end of the rose-colored glasses that he'd stuck over Light's eyes and somehow, for some brief span of time that won't mean in anything in the grand scheme, made him believe that there were things in the world that would bend and not break, things that don't need to be broken in the first place. Things that are already good as they are and shouldn't be changed or removed or cleaned up, but simply locked away in glass cases to be kept hanging in their colossal, impossible, imperfect loveliness. It's poetry and it's a bit trite and maybe a little bit pathetic, but poetry is what moves all the mountains in the end, and the dream-world of Kira is only really a pretty story crafted from pretty ideas. Light should be able to have other pretty things, if he wants them.

Light misses his date with Misa and instead goes looking for Rem. He's running out of time and there's so much he needs to do.

 

\---

**tbc.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's ridiculous how much western literature they talk about in this, but I don't know any of the japanese classics and I'm way too much of a lazy asshole to read any of them for the purposes of this fic. So, what gets referenced is mostly things I have read (i.e., not a lot).
> 
> In other news, does anyone remember when this fic was about something besides L's fucked-up emotional issues? Anyone? No, me neither. I promise things (gasp!) will happen next chapter, this was just something I wanted to explore before I could really go anywhere else, because I'm very off in the head.
> 
> Thank you all for reading/commenting/etc., you're excellent!


	8. man loved the birds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Congratulations! You've made it this far into this monstrosity. As a reward, some plot events might actually sort of happen this chapter ~ wow!
> 
> In all seriousness, a million thanks to everyone who's reading this, or reviewing, favoriting, following, etc. And thank you to the people on tumblr for being brilliant darlings. Thank you all, in general.

_"The French have a phrase for it. The bastards have a phrase for everything and they are always right. 'To say goodbye is to die a little.'"_  
\- Raymond Chandler, _The Long Goodbye_

 

\---

 

He builds himself a box. He is a marvelous builder, a practiced artist when it comes to small, enclosed spaces and he stands in the middle of his bedroom - his, Light's, theirs, whatever; only matters now as far as symbolism goes - and builds himself a box. He can't move his arms or his legs, cannot think his thoughts. He becomes a thing that does not exist, just for a moment, just for as long as it takes him to blink and breathe in softly, trying to set himself right. He hears the knock. He doesn't move.

Aiber's palm is warm when it falls to his shoulder, more awkward and stilted than it's designed to be.

"Hey," Aiber says.

"Get your hands off of me."

L doesn't shake him off, doesn't pull out of his reach, just lays it down as an order: _you can only touch me when I say you can touch me and you cannot touch me now._ A pang of annoyance slips into his box when Aiber doesn't move. His grip gets tenser, veins shifting under the skin, and then L's being jerked around to face him. Aiber's face is void of its usual lightness and he looks oddly concentrative, as if he's given the situation a good deal more thought than he is normally wont to do. Wedy in behind him, posed reticently in the doorway.

"Don't pull that shit with _me_ , L," he says, not unkindly, but his voice is hard.

L frowns. He has to nip this in the bud if he doesn't want it to get out of hand, and he has enough to deal with at the moment. "What?" he asks. "Do you think you're important? That you have some kind of favor with me? Light Yagami was under the same impression, and you can see how it's working out for him."

L keeps his voice even and Aiber's brow shifts as he speaks the words, like a dog trying to understand human speech. L feels little more than disgust towards him at the moment. He is disgusted by everything at this moment, most especially the things outside of his box; sick, strange, unsanitary things. 

"Don't you ever get tired of - " Aiber starts, then stops. He shakes his head. "Nevermind."

He leaves, forcing his way past Wedy and out of the room like the mountain running away from Muhammad. L misses him when he's gone, misses the disgust and fever of being afraid. Wedy's still there, but she's not half as much of a threat, because she's never tried to _know_ him - not in the way Aiber has, the way Light is.

She's all business. "Is he going to kill us?" she asks. "Aiber and I? Because I'll do a lot, but I draw the line - "

"He won't get your names. Not while I'm alive." He says it not because he knows it, but he thinks it's what will make her go away. It doesn't.

"And what if he kills you? If you were ever safe, you aren't now. Not after that." She's playing with her lighter, nails flicking against the body; nervous, but quietly. "If you were really such a genius, you would leave. Now. Pursue the case from a different location. If he doesn't have your name yet, don't give him time to find it out, just go." Her expression is much more distant than Aiber's and if she truly cares about his life and not just her own, she's determined not to let it show. L finds the scarcity of emotion comforting in that way that unappealing things can be, if they're familiar enough.

"I am not running away from a child with a god complex," he says, the words forced out like a battle cry, a call to arms that has no one to call. 

"He's not the only one with a god complex."

L blinks. "Wedy," he says, gently, "get out."

She does. He stands for a while, then sits. The world has lost its angles, gone thick and splotchy with the feeling of pointlessness that settles into him. He has a purpose, a job to do, but no desire to do it and so it all feels like time wasting, just trying to fill the space that is left for him to fill. Light is going to kill him and L knows, logically, that he ought to stop him. He just can't seem to get up the energy to try.

He falls back, feet still touching the ground, hair landing around him like an ugly crown. He imagines a world where he could think straight, a world where he is nobody in particular and Light is just Light - the Light he _had_ been, the one who lives between the mask and truth, the conflicted, young part stuck in the middle that had made L feel less weak through his own weakness - and they could live somewhere, together. A place, a circumstance where chains would be unnecessary, where they could dance around the truth for fun instead of fear, could separate from the rest of the world and into their own. Light could read the paper and L could rest his head in his lap and it would be dull and beautiful in its banality, something to grow bored of instead of be killed by. Maybe they'd break up and go their separate ways and, in this theoretical nowhere-world, maybe that wouldn't be a big deal, wouldn't be worthy of a death sentence.

He puffs the strands of hair out of his eyes and feels far away from himself.

 

\---

 

It takes a while to get Rem to agree to it, and even when she does, sorting out the details is a pain. She wants to know all about how Misa will fit into it, what it will mean, what will happen if it goes wrong, and Light has to explain again and again that it _won't_ go wrong, as long as Rem plays her part. By the time she agrees, he's missed three calls from Misa and has to suffer through a lot of squealing and hugging on the steps of the investigation headquarters in order to slip the note into her pocket. She smells like raspberries and her hands are very small in his. She feels more to him like an annoying little sister than a girlfriend, someone he has to appease as a matter of course.

That, of course, makes him think of Sayu, and that makes him think of how different everything is going to be, _after_. He'll have his autonomy back, can go and see his sister and his mother whenever he likes, can go anywhere. The world is open to him and L is the only thing standing in the way.

"Say hi to Ryuzaki and everyone for me!" Misa calls cheerily as she skips off, expertly covering any surprise at being given a secret note, which is at least some comfort.

Light takes the elevator up to the main room the find L hunched in a chair, which has become unusual in recent days, eating pocky and speaking lowly to Matsuda. Light frowns, has a brief image of Matsuda bending over L - in a bathroom stall, a supply closet, whatever - red-faced and delirious at his good fortune. L would give it up to him for loyalty, maybe, or perhaps for no reason beyond sheer human desperation. It's a very unlikely scenario, but Light imagines it anyway, just to have reason for the distaste that rises in him, watching them speak.

"And then Watari said you'd only been joking, which was honestly kind of a relief. The Shinigami follows the notebook around and, I mean, I guess it's not dangerous or anything, but it's pretty weird to have it floating next to you when you're trying to - oh, hey, Light! How's Misa-Misa?"

Light gives some mundane, placating response and goes on to answer Matsuda's overly excited questions about his lip and L's bruise and whether or not they'd gotten into a fight and what it had been about and are they okay now and do either of them want an icepack, because Matsuda can go get some. Light declines, but L says yes, presumably to get rid of him, and then it's just the two of them surrounded by the warm whirring of the computer systems and the quiet chatter of the rest of the team.

Light looks at the blooming purple bruise at the corner of L's mouth, spread low on his jaw, fading out in an ugly yellow toward his cheek. It looks like sickness and desiccation and it is only beautiful because of how ugly it is. Looking at it makes Light tongue his healing lip. He's got bruises worse than L's all over him and he thinks he should still be angry about that, but he's not. L had, over the course of their time together, mentioned many a job-inflicted injury, earned in the service of justice. L hadn't made them sound particularly romantic, but Light remembers thinking that suffering for the good of the world must be very fulfilling. His aches and pains now, though not exactly the same, instill him with a strange sense of pride.

He sits down and abruptly says, "How many bones have you broken in your life, do you think?" at the same time as L mumbles, "It's my birthday the day after tomorrow."

They shock each other into silence, and Light feels very silly for asking such a needless question, so much so that it takes him a moment to process what L had just said, and when he does, he can't help marveling at the brilliance of the situation. Like poetry, he thinks. As if he'd written it just like this.

"25?" he asks.

L raises his eyebrows. "Oh, not so many as that. Over ten, though."

Light takes a moment to understand what he's talking about - bones instead of years. It's impressive. Over ten is a lot.

"I meant your age," he says.

"Oh. Yes."

They sit for a while in a silence that would be much more awkward if they weren't both so aware of it being so, and it is therefore made almost hilarious, in an upsetting sort of way. Light's a bit giddy inside and L is far-removed. It's all a big mess, really, couldn't get worse if they put effort into trying to make it so. That's what Light is betting on, anyway. The fate of the world is hanging on his snap decision, his strange shift of plans. It's so terrifying in its immensity that, from this distance, it becomes a joke.

Matsuda comes back with the ice-pack eventually. L thanks him stiffly and doesn't use it, so Light picks it up for him, rolling his eyes as he presses it to L's bruised skin. He feels like the harried mother of a developmentally stunted child. L's eyes drop closed against the sharp pressure of the cold, teeth gritting. Light wants to kiss his eyelids, run his hands against his skull.

Instead, he says, "If you had the option, would you take me away with you?" L blinks his eyes open at that, but Light doesn't meet them as he continues. "To England, or wherever you plan to go when this is all over. I know it's not going to happen, but would you, if you could?"

He can feel L staring at the curve of his neck. He is solemn and he seems at once much older and much younger than 25, everything but 25. "You'd hate the weather in England," he says finally. He leaves it at that.

 

\---

 

The inanity of big, dramatic events is that everything in between them feels arbitrary. A film can cut from action scene to action scene and a book can tell you only the important bits, but real life isn't so narratively concise. As much as one might want the atmosphere to continue on into the next day, things snap quickly back to their usual mundanity. So Light chokes him and fucks him and he has Light beaten and chained to a chair, but by the next day it's already become tiring to hold grudges, to continue the crisis.

Things continue on as they must.

"I found Wedy's stash," L says, as soon as he sees Light. He catches him on the stairs, holding up a bottle of something with a very high proof.

"And?" Light says.

"And," L says, "I think we should drink it and have sex."

A pause. "I don't drink," Light says. He looks surprised in a jittery, uncertain sort of way.

L shrugs. "Then we could just have sex."

In actuality, they do drink and they don't have sex. They go to Light's room because it's clear of shared sense memory, ending up on the floor instead of the bed - clean, crisp sheets tucked in at the edges; too perfect to muss - and taking small sips at first, then larger, then lying spread out beside one another on the scratchy carpet, watching the hazy ceiling lights twinkle above them. There is something less debilitating about lolling about on the floor drinking and doing nothing productive when you have someone to do it with, someone who gets drunk much more thoroughly and easily, and smiles at you with his handsome eyes and paws at you with his fine hands.

L climbs on top of Light at one point, because they can't seem to manage it the other way, and they kiss softly and move against each other discordantly, but nothing much comes of it - pun recognized, but not particularly intended. It's more like grappling with an animal than anything else, each of them trying to wrangle the other into the specified position, each blurred and miserable in their own way - at least he thinks, _hopes_ , Light is miserable. There is a good chance that this is all a show, just another game of pretend, but then there always is that chance and L can't be bothered to mind, either way.

_Tomorrow_ , he tells himself. Tomorrow he will catch Kira, tomorrow he will save the world. Maybe the day after. He's already spoken privately to Watari about setting up a test for the 13 day rule, but intends to take measures beyond that in order to ensure his success.

He intends to.

For now, he strokes along Light's thigh and presses his face against the crook of his shoulder, collarbone kneading into his cheek. They have conversations, hazy and half-there and about nothing of particular interest. Light will say something and L will make some reply and they will tumble forward, the blind leading the blind into something like a strange sort of intimacy, one they seem to enter at unusual intervals and with little regard for the situation at hand. 

"I dislike animals," Light says, at one point. "Sayu always wanted a cat, but she wouldn't have taken care of it and I would have had to take care of it and everyone knew that so she never got a cat."

"Why would you have taken care of it?"

"Because she wouldn't have."

"But if you dislike animals."

"I dislike a lot of things."

Light is next to him, twisting his fingers through L's hair, and his voice is low and tired and tiring. L wants to kiss him but his arm has fallen asleep and these two things seem connected to one another, somehow.

"We had a dog when I was younger," he says instead. "A great, dumb, sheepish beast who would bite only when she was sure of there being no repercussions. Horrible animal. I don't remember her name. I miss her."

"Did it die?" Light asks.

"Of course she died. Everything dies."

"Not you."

"I haven't yet, no."

"You won't. I don't think - I think you won't."

"That's very kind of you to say."

"I'm not being kind."

"No, you never are."

They do kiss then, but Light's the one who shifts to initiate it. He tastes thickly of alcohol, like sickness and weight and unreasonable things that have no names. In that moment, L feels very inclined to run away and elope with him, except without the actual marriage or the traveling, and he'd have to bring Watari of course, so maybe what he wants more is a metaphorical elopement. He wants to and he entertains it contentedly and that's worth about as much as the act itself. _Love_ is such an uncalled for word in any situation, but it fits nicely into this one and L lets it float in the back of his mind like a private joke with himself.

"That boy," Light says at one point, "the one who knew names."

"I made him up," L mumbles.

"Oh."

It's as easy as that.

"I lied to you when I said you were my first friend," L says at another point.

Light scoffs, taking a long sip. "Do you think I don't know that?"

"No. I think you know it, but in the wrong way. We're friends now, I suppose, but I've had friends before and better friends at that."

"Aiber and Wedy?"

"And people like them, yes."

"Those aren't friends."

"Then I suppose I never have had any friends, up to and including you."

"I suppose I never have either."

L imagines he can hear sirens from the streets below, but knows he can't. They're too high up and the building is too well-made. Light's lips are warm against his temple. They're not really concerned with touching each other anymore, individually collapsed and only half on top of one another by chance. Light's bangs tickle his forehead.

"We're not the brilliant minds we like to pretend to be, are we?" L says, for some reason he will not remember in the morning. "Great, big fakes, the both of us."

Light sits up, looking at him curiously. Then, before he can say whatever he's going to say, he leans away from L, thrusting out a hand to steady himself before promptly throwing up on the carpet beside him. His body spasms with the force of it, racked and shivering. By the time L thinks to help him to the toilet, he's done, sitting up and wiping his lips and frowning like he can't quite believe he's just done that.

Then he groans, shoving a hand to his forehead.

"I quite agree," L says, slipping one of Light's arms over his shoulder.

He manages to haul him up and over to the bed, dropping him on the mattress with little ceremony and attempting to arrange him into a position somewhat suitable for sleep. Light is not overly compliant. He whines in the back of his throat, knocking L's hands away. L thinks of getting a warm, wet towel and wiping the excess vomit off of Light's face, but it feels altogether too kind and too foreign, so he just brings him a bucket and turns the lights off.

"My socks," Light mumbles, blinking blearily at L from beneath the ends of his hair. 

"What about them?"

"My feet are hot," he says. It's strange in a sad way to see him like this. L thinks he should feel empowered or something, being at such a constitutional advantage, but it just makes him feel weirdly intrusive. Like seeing a hollywood actor without their make-up on, crying on a dirty street corner, and he's the paparazzo snapping the headline photo.

He walks to the end of the bed and slips Light's socks off, setting them on the sheet next to him. "Is that better?" he asks, drawing his thumb along the arch of Light's foot. Like everything about him, it's beautiful.

"Mmmh," Light says, already mostly asleep.

L puts in a call to Watari for the clean up, then goes out into the hallway, closing the door quietly behind him. His head is blurry and flared, but he feels strangely soft in the low light of the early morning, like things aren't half as bleak as he usually pretends they are. Melodrama has been his quiet companion through-out this whole case - a necessary spin to an otherwise too complex story. He'd fashioned good and evil, one for himself and one for Light, but he's been in this business long enough to understand that it's not and never will be that simple. Light is a fragile boy, a boy who doesn't drink, and _evil_ is too simple a descriptor.

Likewise, _good_ does not approach the reality of what L is.

He slumps down the hallway, resolving to find Aiber if he's awake and to wake him up if he's not. Not to apologize, of course - apologizing is not something that L is in the habit of doing - but to make sure he understands that while he is not in any way special or irreplaceable, he is a valuable team member, and one that L would rather not do without. He isn't sure of the truth of either the former or the latter statements, but truth is not what matters in this situation. At this point, the priority is survival.

He's turning a corner, head sorting through a list of meaningless platitudes to attempt to find one with an applicable sentiment, something simple and to the point and not as fruity or romantic as _'I need you,'_ but slightly more affectionate than, _'I'd prefer not to have to fire you,'_ when he feels it. Just a prick on his neck, nothing much - and then the pain is sharp, jabbing into the vein with a sick shakiness. He swerves, hand going to his neck, but it's not fast enough, it's already in him, already licking through his blood stream and making him dizzy and imprecise. He can't see anyone, but he can feel it, there's someone there, someone watching him as his legs give out and his vision goes very dark and then very bright and then -

He's floating, he thinks. He's just floating. He watches the ground below him get smaller, fading out into nothing. He fades with it.

 

\---

 

It's all very well to feel sick to your stomach in a metaphorical sense and Light, given the amount of time he spends around L, is well-practiced at it. It's a completely different matter to be legitimately sick to your legitimate stomach and legitimately need to throw up.

He's halfway to the bathroom before he's fully awake and has a very near miss with the doorframe, navigating it just in time to lean over the toilet and vomit spectacularly. He hears the knocking then, realizes it's what must have woken him in the first place, but can't be bothered to conjure up a polite response as he barely manages to hold himself up, breathing heavily. His head feels like a fish tank and his mouth tastes like a beach towel and he wants nothing more than to go back to sleep.

His feet are cold and he doesn't know where his socks are.

The knock comes again.

"Hold on!" Light calls, his voice wavering, then cracking on the words. He flushes the toilet and brushes his teeth, then brushes his teeth again for good measure. He can't get it up to floss at the moment. By the time he's blundering over to the door, his mouth still tastes like sick, just with a minty twist.

Watari is neatly groomed, his suit well-pressed, eyeing Light with a distantly curious expression, and it makes him overly aware of how terrible he must look. Where the fuck is L? If L were here, Light might still look put-together in comparison.

"What is it?" he says, trying to be as polite as possible while feeling as if he would be best suited to curling up on the floor and dying.

Watari's mustache twitches. "I apologize for disturbing you, Yagami," he says, not sounding particularly apologetic, "only I think you had better come and join us downstairs."

And Light thinks a number of things then, scenarios flashing through his frazzled mind and twisting things up, making his chest seize just a little; things like: _they know, they know I'm Kira_ or _they know about L and me_ or _someone's dead_ or _Misa fucked up, yes, Misa probably fucked up_ \- but the thought that he settles on, the one that drowns out all the others, is comparatively simple: _where is L?_

 

\---

 

Yagami looks like shit. It's a rather unusual occurrence and Aiber cherishes it dearly, leaned as he is against the wall, back a twist of angry tension. Wedy is next to him, half a shield and half a voice of reason.

"Don't do anything stupid," she tells him, tone low and surprisingly sober for someone so consistently inebriated.

L would have asked her to define _stupid_ , would have said the word means nothing unless the speaker's definition of intelligent action is first explained and the caveats provided by the situation at hand are taken into account. That _"Don't do anything stupid,"_ is, in itself, a stupid and vastly imprecise thing to say. Wedy would have told him to get bent. Aiber would have probably wholeheartedly concurred.

But L is not here, _L is not here_ , and that is why Aiber's back is knotted and why his brow feels stuck stiff on his face, why he can't seem to quite laugh any of it off.

"What do you mean 'gone'?" Light asks, face a perfect mask of pretty-boy cluelessness that's not even offset by the sharp exhaustion in his eyes or the rumpled, slept-in look of his clothes.

The chief's sigh is heavy and his face is lined and he has the eyes of someone well past retirement age. "Watari-san says that he's scanned the entire building, and we sent out Aizawa and Ide to do a sweep in person, but no one's seen him in hours."

"What about his bedroom," Light says immediately, "there are no cameras in there."

"Checked," Watari says. "Floor-to-ceiling. He's gone."

"He can't just be _gone_ , he has to be somewhere. What about the helicopters, the limousine? Maybe he went out."

"All accounted for."

"Well, then maybe he went for a walk," Matsuda puts in, wearing his happy-face grin and twisting his fingers sheepishly as he speaks. "I mean - I know it's the middle of the Kira investigation, but maybe he just needed some fresh air. That happens sometimes, right?"

"Not to L," Aiber puts in from the sidelines, staying slumped where he is as all of their eyes jerk his way. Yagami's expression is one of fixed displeasure, but curious all the same. He really does look slightly panicked, as if this whole thing isn't easily traceable back to him. "I can tell you what did happen, though," Aiber continues, partly just to keep his audience enraptured, enunciating the word with a delicious air of performance. "Kira."

"That's not - that can't," Matsuda starts, stopping soon after.

The room is still, the dull hum of computers becoming loud in the ensuing silence as the investigators look around at one another with a vague sort dying hope, as if L is at any moment going to jump out from behind a corner, yell, _"Just kidding!"_ and everything will be okay again. It doesn't happen.

Aiber hates them all terribly - not just Yagami, _all_ of them. They wear their dull grey suits and they stand there dumbly, uselessly, without even the tiniest edge of understanding as to what this all truly means.

Not just that there is no one left to stop Kira - who cares about Kira? - but that _L is gone_. L and his boney knees and jagged frame and the way he would smile without his mouth at the things Aiber says, the way he'd arch and twist and get solemn and quiet, reflective and far away, as if there was a little room inside of his head where he would go, locking the rest of the world out. His skin had always been warm to the touch, pallid and removed, but warm like a living thing, pretty in unpracticed ways. Aiber's fucked hollywood girls and trust-fund boys, bodies to fill the spaces that L had carved out in him, trying to recreate that one moment.

It had been before Argentina, before he'd been caught, before he'd known that L was investigating him at all. It had been in someone else's house, on someone else's spare mattress. It had been a sunny afternoon, and L's hair had tickled patterns against Aiber's spine. He'd quoted some very famous French writer who Aiber has never read or cared to. He'd fallen asleep - had been faking it, of course, and as much had become obvious after the fact - but in Aiber's memory, in that moment, L had fallen asleep with Aiber's hand around his wrist.

"I can't accept that," Light is saying, loudly, in a stoically earnest voice that sounds like he's trying out for his secondary school play. "We don't - we don't know anything yet."

The officers are nodding. Watari looks grim and unconvinced, but he says nothing. Aiber reaches over, plucking Wedy's cigarette from right between her fingers and taking a long drag. The smoke twists horribly through his throat. _A terrible habit_. He hands if back to her, blowing out as he moves across the room, slowly at first, casual as ever. It's not until he's practically in front of Light that he throws his hand out, grabbing him by the collar of yesterday's shirt and jerking him forward in one swift, uncompromising movement.

"Where is he?" he demands, shaking Light into an artless stumble.

"What are you - " Light gasps, trying to keep his balance. "Aiber-san, calm down for a moment." His eyes are wide and wild and ungenuine, flicking around the room, mapping out exits or coming up with a plan, giving shape to the lies.

"Cut the cute stuff, Kira," Aiber grits, tugging him around by the scruff of his neck. "How did you get his name? Did he give it to you?" The thought's been swirling in him for some time, formless and without cause, but there's just this niggling fancy that he _could have_ \- not because he'd fallen, not because Light had truly charmed him, but as a part of the plan; it isn't an inconceivable possibility. "Did you ask him for it nicely?"

"Hey, cut it out. Light's not Kira!" Matsuda says, pulling weakly at Aiber's arm. He shakes him off easily.

Aiber has to do this because no one else will, because they're buried safe under the self-imposed delusion that Light Yagami is harmless, is incapable of the cruel and unusual. If L were here it would be different, but L's not here - not dead, though, _not dead_ , can't be - so Aiber steps up to the plate, intends to hit the ball out of the park.

Watari's hand is firm on his shoulder, aged and gnarled and familiar. "Aiber-san," he says, a thin air of understanding in his voice, "please. That isn't helping."

Aiber looks at Yagami, ignoring the faces around him. His lip is scabbed, still healing from the blow, and he's probably marked up pretty badly underneath his clothes. Shin, gut, face: three of the most effective points, genitalia aside - and although L hadn't specifically cautioned him against debilitating the goods, he'd done him the courtesy of avoidance, anyhow. Still, even bruised and bloodshot and rumpled, Light is still fundamentally one of the best looking people Aiber's seen in his life, probably the best L has ever touched. He understands the fascination, to a certain degree - but not beyond, not far enough to believe that L would willingly submit not only his body, but his life to a pretty kid with some big ideas.

L is in hiding, maybe. Or kidnapped. Maybe he's been kidnapped.

The world is made of _maybe_ s, though, and if L were here he would tell Aiber that he's being self-deluding and illogical, betting on them like that.

Matsuda is red-faced and harried, stepping back out of Aiber's immediate reach with an expression of great suspicion on his face. The chief's mustache is quirked disapprovingly. Mogi, as usual, is silent.

From her perch, Wedy breathes out a thin plume of smoke, sending it up towards the high vents in the ceiling. "Where'd you get the booze?" she asks, eyes rolling lazily to Light, and Aiber thanks God, Jesus, and the whole shebang for her low words and clever tone, if only because she's undoubtedly on his side, subtly or not. "You're hungover, aren't you?"

Light swallows, straightening his shirt slightly - the perfect guilty teen - and nods. "It's was yours," he says, "the alcohol. L said he thought you wouldn't mind."

"Light?" his father says, suitably shocked and appalled, like being accused of murder pales in comparison to the enormity of underage drinking.

"He said that it was his birthday tomorrow," Light says quietly. "Or today, I guess." This would probably be the point at which he'd stare dolefully out the window, but seeing as the room is windowless, his eyes just catch on the wall, and he stares long and far away as if he can see straight through it. Maybe he can.

The thought would be slightly more ridiculous if, in the last few days, Aiber hadn't been walked - or rather, floated - in on multiple times by a giant, terrifying monster of a thing with a very put-upon expression. If Light is Kira, and Kira deals in Shinigami powers, who knows what else he can do, what other powers he has. Being limited to a notebook, after all, is rather pathetic.

"That's correct," Watari says, confirming L's birthday. Hmm. Aiber hadn't known, isn't quite sure it matters.

"He'd wanted to celebrate," Light says, voice taut with restrained emotion - a typical technique, one Aiber had learned in his earliest acting classes, back when he'd wanted to be in the movies instead of the criminal underworld. "We got drunk, we just talked. It wasn't a big deal," he lies. Always, always lying. "He went back to his room sometime last night and that was the last time I saw him. I can't believe - he's got to be somewhere. We've got to find him."

Light looks like he could go for several more minutes of soliloquizing, but Aiber doesn't let him get that far, just crosses his arms and says, "Yeah, okay, but has anyone seen the Shinigami?"

 

\---

 

He'd hidden in a luggage compartment once, just curled up and stowed away with the baggage, arm bent awkwardly against someone's ski gear for several long hours. When the plane had been in the process of being hijacked, he'd knocked until he'd been let out by one of the frazzled hostages and put two bullets in the chest of the guard that had been left to watch the passengers. The body had fallen sideways, landing across a row containing a single mother and her two young sons. L had left them to sort it out for themselves, stepping into the cockpit to take out the other two hijackers. They'd given up easily and L hadn't even needed to sleep with anyone to solve that case.

Despite the impression he likes to give, that's not all the investigating her does - sex is the 40 in the 60/40 odds, and he only recalls those cases more clearly because they're the ones that stick in his mind, that would keep him awake at night if he didn't keep himself awake. There are also hackers and hitmen and corporate espionage, where the perpetrator is not truly connected to their crime, doesn't need to be investigated in carne.

He thinks about his cases, thinks about the bodies and the hands, hips and torsos and ears - the forgettable, imprecise parts of people that he memorizes and catalogues and forms extensive theories based upon. He thinks about Light's hips and torso and ears, thinks about Beyond's. Tries to remember why - in this half-haze, where all he can see is a gritty, blank space with a few cracks, a thin layer of dust - why he had thought of that time on the plane, that wrenching pain in his shoulder.

Then he shifts slightly and realizes he's feeling something eerily similar now.

He blinks his eyes open quickly, suddenly, gaze flitting around rapidly, trying to take it all in at a time, like one massive gulp of water that he can't quite swallow. Nothing fits together and then, strangely - typical of the human senses - it all does, and L's arm is tied up above his head and he is lying in a small, dim room with cheap lamplight and a massive Shinigami staring at him.

"Hello," he says. His voice feels thick and it cracks through his throat, setting his head to pounding.

She says nothing.

He is on a bed. He is chained to a bed, and it's sort of a familiar feeling and sort of an amusing one, because it feels very maudlin and fake, like something that would happen to a detective in a movie instead of to an actual detective. The room is sparse and forgettable: off-white walls and cheap veneer furniture and very little else. There are no sheets on the bed, the mattress is generic. The only thing in the place that is at all notable is Rem, gangly and tendinous and the sickly purple-grey of a dead body. She still says nothing, cat-eye on him with mild bewilderment, as if his existence is slightly troubling to her.

He cycles through his last thoughts, remembers taking Light's socks off and putting him to bed, remembers the hall and the quiet feeling of morning, remembers floating.

"You brought me here?" he asks. He's seen the Shinigami go through walls before; it's not a stretch that she could bring him through walls with her, could have transported him easily, could have put him to sleep easier.

She doesn't reply, so he tries again. "You used some sort of Shinigami power to knock me out?"

"I stabbed you with a needle full of drugs," she says, her low, dull voice a shock.

"Oh." L's eyes flick back up to the crack on the ceiling, trail along the edges of the room, looking for weak points. "That will do it, too, I suppose."

There are no windows and only one door, which doesn't look particularly solid, but even if he were able to maneuver his way out of the handcuffs and break it down, he doubts that Rem would let him get far. He drops back, hair falling around him as his head hits the mattress - no sheets, no pillows - and tries to position himself so that his chained arm has a bit less pressure on it as he waits for Light to arrive.

 

\---

 

The night air is cold on Light's face, and the thick press of bodies on the Tokyo streets is familiar but uncomfortable, a world away from what he'd grown used to. There are bright lights, heavy smells, planet Earth alive and uncompromising in front of him, dirty and fractured and loud, a parade of human weakness.

He follows the map on his phone to the apartment that he'd had Misa buy - paid in cash, fake name, black wig; untraceable - hasn't ever been here and is afraid he won't be able to find it, that he won't get there in time, that he'd miscalculated and that _everything_ is ruined. He digs into his pocket for the key that Rem has dropped on his nightstand yesterday, through the wall behind his bed, invisible on the recordings. The key to the lock that holds back the sky, the light and the dark and all of the things that are worth anything. He twists it in, pulls the knob, has to give the rusted hinges a shove to get the door to open.

There's a small living room, a smaller kitchen, the bare necessities of furniture and not much else. A door, a long staircase, another small room, a hallway, and another door. He undoes the lock, hands shaking slightly and this is it, it all comes down to this. If this room is empty, then everything is ruined, then nothing will work out the way it ought - then _L_ -

No, no, don't think it, don't think things that hurt.

He opens the door, quicker than he means to, stands in the doorway and breathes out long and heavy, wallows in the relief.

L is on the bed. L, in his worn jeans and overlarge shirt, hair a mess, skin fading into the mattress. He sits up slowly, meets Light's eyes with his familiarly blank stare, accusatory in its absence of feeling.

Light loves him.

Light loves him the way you love a man who burns down your house and murders your family, who rapes you and pillages the wreckage. Light loves him so much and so often and with such tremendous force that it has become a part of him, like his eyes or his ears or his hands. Light is in the doorway and Light loves him.

L is on the bed and L's voice is hollow when he says, "So," tilting his head to the side slightly, hair falling across his eyes in a deflated slant. Light says nothing.

He turns to Rem, gives her a look that's meant to grind down deep, make it clear how _not happy_ he is. He holds out his hand. The Midazolam is in a dark, mostly full bottle and the needle goes in quickly, withdrawing just enough. He flicks the body, the way they do on television, spritzes a bit out, and takes slow steps over to the bed.

"So," he returns, holding up the needle, making it obvious what he intends to do with it.

L's watches the trajectory of his arm, but doesn't make a move to stop him, and bends easily when Light takes him by the wrist, stretching out the skin and pressing the needle to the crook of his elbow. He looks at him with eyes that think they know so much and says, with half a smile twitching onto his face, "You've really fucked yourself, Kira."

His crooked amusement wilts as Light injects him, drug flooding his veins, slipping into his system. He slows, stops and starts, the deep breaths of sleep taking over, and then he's just a body, unconscious and incapable.

Light only half understands him, the rest is just white noise, static in the background of his quiet victory. L is here and L is not dead, just sleeping. There's a clawing, hateful feeling in his throat, and he resents L _so much_ for being a thing that cannot be dead, a thing that he loves.

It's a ridiculous word. It feels ridiculous when he thinks it, when he rolls it on his tongue. _Love_. Misa says she loves him but that's different, has to be different, because Misa isn't capable of feeling what Light feels for L, no one is, no one could be. Just him, just L. He leans down, wants to press his lips to L's temple, wants to strip him and curl against his body, because it all feels so weighted and important and _necessary_.

His hands are maybe shaking, or maybe he's just imagining it.

He breathes out. Sets down the needle.

Rem is waiting out in the hallway when he goes out and finally, as he closes the door behind him, Light feels like there's enough air in the room for him to speak, to think straight. He shakes his head, trying to knock off the smile that's painting itself across his face, but then he's laughing, he's just absolutely laughing. He's vaguely hit by the image he must make, laughing to himself - and a god of death - alone in the shit hallway of the shit apartment he'd had his fake girlfriend buy so that he could keep his real boyfriend there. Boyfriend? That's a terrible word for L. This is a terrible situation.

Light can't stop laughing.

Rem is looking at him like _he's_ the large, sludgy beast in the room, and so he wipes his eyes, shakes his head once more, and leans back against the door, feeling light and brilliant and unstoppable.

"November 5th," he says slowly, letting the jovial expression drop slowly from his face. "I told you to take him on November 5th."

Light knows that Shinigami can roll their eyes, because he's seen Ryuk do it plenty of times. Rem doesn't quite, but she looks as if she wants to. "And I told you that I do not know what a November 5th _is_ ," she says, slow and dully forceful, the way she always sounds. "The human calendar is strange and imprecise. He was alone, there was an opening, I took it. This is what you wanted, isn't it?"

Light grits his teeth and stands up straighter. "What about the cameras?" he says.

"There are blind spots."

Rem has her uses, but her stoic impudence is unbearable and Light feels his good mood fading fast, mind shooting through all the things he needs to do. Get his notebook back, convince Misa to trade for the Eyes again, keep the taskforce occupied. The judgements. So many people, so many useless, unworthy people who don't deserve to have been born, and L is drugged up and chained down behind this door and how is that fair?

The world is not fair. The world is all wrong and Light has to fix it, has to set everything right. He squeezes the bridge of his nose, feels exhausted already.

"Fine," he says, "fine. Just guard the door."

He doesn't look at Rem, ignores everything - the quiet click of the lock and soft sound of the carpeting beneath his feet and the low light of the room - just sinks down next to L on the other side of the bed, the side he always sleeps on, and closes his eyes.

The room doesn't smell like L yet. It will.

 

\---

 

L wakes abruptly, as he always does. His body goes stock-still and tensed for attack, then loosens slowly as he becomes aware of his surroundings. Blank walls, no sheets, shoulder cramp. Light's left arm tossed over his chest and his nose presses against L's neck, breathing softly in and out. His body is warm and his hair is tossed appealingly in his eyes and he is really such an attractive boy.

He's also just kidnapped L.

It's kind of hilarious, actually. Kira has kidnapped him. Kira kills with little discretion, takes down anyone who gets in his way without a second thought or a doubt in his mind, and he's _kidnapped_ L. It's so terribly naive. As if it's this easy, as if you can just scavenge away the things you like, keep them in a cage and feed them scraps and call them yours and expect no one to come looking. As if this isn't the single _stupidest_ thing that Kira could possibly have done.

"You idiot," he says gently, voice cracking slightly - likely from the unnecessary sedative use. "You beautiful, shining idiot."

This is not a Kira thing to do. It's not exacting or precise or brilliant in any way. It's a plan thrown together by someone unsure and afraid, someone with no other choice. But Kira has had plenty of choices, could have - _should_ have - killed him, or at least made plans to kill him. Kidnapping draws too much attention, throws suspicion on everyone with personal access to him, makes the crime far easier to trace. Kira wouldn't do this, would never -

Light Yagami, though, he might.

Just a boy, just a silly little boy with big ideas about things he doesn't understand. A boy who thinks that L is important.

He sleeps peacefully and when L slips out from his hold, he only shifts slightly, breath puffing out on a tiny groan. There's a fuzz, a head-rush, and L steadies himself with his free hand against the wall. It's the drugs, two shots of something he can't identify - some form of Benzodiazepine, maybe? - injected over a relatively short amount of time, on an empty stomach and with more than a few traces of alcohol in the bloodstream.

He glances at Light, who's completely out, and realizes that he's probably still sleeping off the hangover.

Good, good, that should give L time. The handcuff chain is short, not much longer than a normal pair of police handcuffs, but sturdy enough that it's not going to break without excessive force. That's fine, it's fine. He can do this. He's done this before and he can do this now. Gritting his teeth, he folds his hand, makes it as small as possible and slowly starts to maneuver it out of the cuff. It chafes, metal splitting the skin, and if he can just bend his fingers - just a little more - he can -

"Don't bother," Light says silkily, blinking lazily up at him from the bed.

L freezes for just a moment, like a child caught doing something naughty, before quickly resuming the effort. The skin is splitting, cuts warming his wrist, but it does't matter. Watari can bandage him when he gets back. Light watches him, eyes narrowing, the folds of his shirt shifting smooth against his chest as he moves. He watches L curiously, as if he doesn't fully understand, as if wanting to run away from someone who's drugged and incapacitated you doesn't really compute in his mind.

"Come on," he says, sitting up. "You'll get blood everywhere and I'll have to clean up after you, like I always do. Rem's outside, anyway." He yawns, toned arms stretching above his head. "She'd catch you before you could make it two feet. And then there are several more doors and several more deadbolts, and Shinigami are hard to outrun. So, don't bother, okay? Just come back to bed."

L is standing in the middle of a foreign room, nearly dislocating several of his fingers in an effort to get loose. L has been kidnapped and Light is his kidnapper and Light is looking at him like he expects L to roll over, to just crawl into his lap or something. There's a strange disconnect from reality, as if this is all some big game, a role-play or something. Like with the choking - terrifying, in its way, but Light had been so far removed he hadn't even noticed or cared.

This is not good. This is a brilliant boy using the world like a plaything. The prodigal son with a stick of dynamite.

L stops. He isn't actually getting anywhere with the cuff, and the biting pain is rather uncomfortable, besides. He just stops and says, "You're actually mad, aren't you?" He flicks his eyes sharply at Light, tilts his head. Light just smiles, and he doesn't get it, he really doesn't get it all. "Like, stark raving," L continues, starting to pace. He can barely move on such a short chain but he's antsy, can't be still, this is _all wrong._ "You _kidnapped_ me, Light. It's a stupid move. It's a stupid thing to do, you understand that, right?"

His voice is a quiet seethe, but it gets louder as he speaks - like talking to a deaf person, like thinking that raising your voice is suddenly going to make them understand. It doesn't work.

Light waves a hand, leans against the headboard. "Don't be so overdramatic, it doesn't suit you."

He looks oddly self-satisfied, like L's panic is what he's been waiting for, but it's not the right kind of panic.

"They're going to catch you," he says, walking up to Light, going to the very edge of the bed, then stopping, like he can't move any further. "What's the idea here? Go to work every day with the investigation team, and then what? Come home to me, waiting for you with a pot roast and a martini?"

He's not actually sure that Light has ever eaten a pot roast in his life, or had any desire to, but L can't quite think of the Japanese equivalent at this point and it's semantics anyway. The point is, this is a snow globe. Light has built them a snow globe to live in. Their old world - the headquarters, the bedroom, the chain - was coming to an end, looming past its due date, and instead of accepting that and doing what needs to be done - killing L, taking the Death Note, whatever the plan is - he's trying to extend the honeymoon period on into real life. But it doesn't work like that.

The snow globe always breaks at some point. L always gets his man - or woman, child, whatever. Then it ends and he moves onto the next one.

Light is not allowed to be his suspect forever.

Light doesn't seem to understand this, though. It doesn't even seem to vaguely strike him. He just snorts slightly at the pot roast comment and says, "Well, you don't have to cook, if that's what you're getting worked up about."

L shakes his head, wishes for once that he was wearing shoes so that he could stomp his feet, make his point loudly and with little room to be misinterpreted.

"You stupid boy," he says. "Murder is one thing. Writing names in a notebook is _easy_ , all you need to know is how to spell. Keeping a living, breathing person as your prisoner? That's a lot different. People eat, Light. They eat and they shit and they drink water, they need exercise and mental stimulus and - "

"Don't act like I haven't thought this through," Light says, frowning. That's something, at least. "I _know_ \- "

"No, you don't," L says, finally crossing that invisible barrier and leaning over onto the bed, one knee up, almost looming onto Light. "You don't know anything about human beings, just like you don't know anything about emotions, or how to navigate them. Most people?" he says, stabbing two long fingers into Light's chest. "They feel the things you're feeling? They take the person out for coffee, maybe to a movie. They don't chain them to a bed in a basement somewhere."

It's a call out, an actual spoken accusation, and the crime is affection.

Light looks at him with wide, boyish eyes, but the wonderment is draining out of them and reality is setting in. This is what he's bought and paid for, this is what he's stolen away - not a pet, not another Misa, someone who will sit and stay and roll over when he tells them to, but a real person. L is a real person, a human being with a past, with dark parts, with responsibilities and people who depend on him. Light doesn't understand that and he doesn't want it. He wants a doll, something clever and pliable, something to play with and own, but not to know. Not to _understand_.

That's fine. L doesn't need to be understood. He just needs his bodily autonomy, at the very least.

It isn't quite clicking for Light, though, because as brilliant has he is, his intelligence lies in the clinical, the bare facts of things. Emotions don't seem to factor in for him, and certainly not L's.

He huffs, kneels up in bed so that he and L are of level height. "As if you're some great pioneer of social decorum?" he snaps. "You physically chained me to your wrist. For _three months_."

"That was for a criminal investigation," L says, tone getting wild, out of hand, "not because I realized I would need someone to fuck after taking over the world." There's too much in his voice, too much feeling. He's showing skin, he's chafing himself raw and he knows it, but he can't seem to stop. "There's Light Yagami and there's Kira." He holds out his palms, two sides of a scale." There's Ryuzaki and there's L. You don't get both. Either choose coffee dates and movies or Shinigami and mass murder. It's one or the other. Either kill me and play god or - or go back to being what you were. Be him. Be Light Yagami."

The words come out in a rush and they hurt, they _hurt_ , because -

_This is someone he doesn't want to leave._

"I am Light Yagami," Light say, grabbing one of L's hands. It's the free one, the one without the chain. His fingers are warm and familiar, feel just like they always have, but it's not the same.

L pulls out of his reach, moving so quickly he almost knocks himself over, held up only by the tense strain of the chain. " _You're not_. He - You're not."

"I'm him, he's me," Light says, palm coming up to cup L's face, "there's no difference. There's no difference. Look at me."

L looks. His lip is still scabbed and his eyes are more tired than usual, worn around the edges, but there's that tiny, clever spark - a wild, radiant thing that lives inside him, is him. A thing that can play god and play him well. A thing that L hadn't wanted to leave.

"You love me," Light says.

He just says it, just outright lays it down, like an undeniable fact. But it's such an immature act, to tell someone that they love you, to insist upon it. It should be pathetic, but the way Light says it, the assurance in his voice, is strong and pulling, tearing at all the seams. It's a mandate, an order from a king to a subject.

L keeps his expression flat.

"I liked you," he says. "Past tense. _Love_ is such a strong word, and you might be clever, but you're not clever enough to know what it means. And I hate when people use words that they don't understand."

The hand on his cheek gets rough, fingers clutching, and then Light yanks him forward, face first.

" _You_ don't understand," he says, voice a determined grit. "But you will. Look, I know you're frightened. I know this is all different, but it's not really, it's just the same. A different room, a different bed, a different chain, but I'm still me, you're still you." He moves close, so close his lips are almost on L's cheek and L is disgusting because he wants them to be. "You love me. And we don't have to play games anymore, we don't have to tip-toe around the truth."

Maybe L should be shocked, maybe he should be bowled over by the enormity of the moment, but he's taken it as a given for so long that the confession is almost anticlimactic. It's just another fact about Light, likes how he takes his tea or what kind of music he listens to. _Mass murderer_ is just one of many qualities.

"Kira," he says, not overly slowly or quietly or importantly. He just says it,

He half-expects Light to toss his head back, to do one of those manically villainous laughs. He doesn't, doesn't even smirk. He smiles, though, looks almost chipper. "Yes."

L supposes he's been waiting ages to openly brag about it.

 

\---

**tbc.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really doubt this is an unforeseeable plot twist, seeing as it's right up there in the summary. This is actually what I originally intended to write when I started this thing (your typical 'light kidnaps L and rapes him and takes over the world~' fic, except with less rape and more belligerent domesticity.) In my original outline, Light was meant to do the kidnapping in, like, chapter three, but then I got sidetracked by actually giving them a solid relationship foundation before the whole imprisonment thing. (pshhh, I know, who cares about that, right?)
> 
> Anyway, I hope you're looking forward to some domestic bliss! Or, you know, more fist fighting and weird sex. Either way, thank you for reading.


	9. the boy dies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the second of what is probably going to be three arcs. If you made it this far, congratulations. Nothing really happens in this chapter, which appears to be a theme with this story, but alas. Thank you to every lovely person who read/reviewed/favorited. You all keep me chugging along when I might have otherwise driven straight off the tracks weeks ago.

_"When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object."_  
\- Milan Kundera, _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_

 

\---

 

It's cold today.

They've got central heating and all, but Matt leaves the window propped open to flick his ash out by turns, keeping the smoke from staining the room thick and harsh. Roger knows he smokes - everyone knows he smokes - but no one says it outright. No one ever approaches the many behavioral deficiencies in Wammy's students, provided they keep their grades up. Matt smokes constantly, blows all of his allowance on cigarettes, just waiting for the day when third place won't be sufficient compensation for the habit. A quiet rebellion; he's daring them to kick him out.

He's daring himself to figure out somewhere else to go.

The carpet is cool and rough under his back and the floor shakes as Mello stomps in. His hair is in his eyes and he looks like he's about to cry, which is sort of scary, in a nervous _oh god, what should I say, what should I do with my hands_ kind of way.

He steps over Matt, goes straight to the closet and pulls out a backpack, the one they used to use on hikes. Half the zippers are broken and there's gum stuck to the inside, somewhere. Matt sighs out some smoke, taps the butt into his empty mug and sits up. He doesn't say anything because all of the things he thinks of are obvious and also completely stupid.

"I'm leaving," Mello announces, not turning around, just haphazardly tossing clothes into the bag.

Too many shirts, Matt notices. Not enough trousers. Is he even packing socks? He watches Mello's hands move, quick and unsystematic, he's shivering slightly, keeps pulling his sleeves down lower. Nervous. He's nervous. He's leaving.

"Oh," Matt says.

Which is the worst possible thing that anyone has ever said in response to anything ever, especially because _this is exactly what he wants_. Right? He wants to leave, has wanted to leave since he came to Wammy's as a kid, only Mello - Mello was, is, the only person worth being anywhere with and Mello loves it here, always has, and so Matt had stayed. But he'd harbored fantasies, the way everyone does - tiny, silly things - that one day they'd go together, set out on the road, take London by storm or go to the US or go anywhere, really. He'd just been waiting for Mello to say the word.

And now Mello is saying the word and all Matt can say is, "Oh."

Mello doesn't turn around, so Matt stands up, just stands there, fingers flicking at his lighter. After a moment, he comes up with another word. "Why?"

"Because," Mello practically yells, spinning to face Matt, "it's time for me to grow the fuck up."

"Oh," Matt says again, because what else is he meant to say? _Calm down, you batshit loon, calm down and let me stroke your hair like when we were little_. "Should I come with you?"

"No," Mello says.

He wipes at his eyes, and he's crying, he's actually crying and this is all of Matt's late-night wank fantasies plastered right in front of him. Mello used to cry all the time when they were kids, throw tantrums, throw punches, and just fucking scream and sob when things weren't going his way. And things have never gone his way. Matt used to grab him by the wrist or the ends of his fingers, pull him under the north stairs with blankets and cups of cocoa, and he wouldn't say anything, wouldn't have to speak, would just listen to Mello tell him quietly about all of his plans, about all of the things he was going to do, the ways he meant to make L proud, make the world understand _what he was_.

Brilliant, better than Near, better than everyone. The best.

Of course, at age five - or six or seven or eight - Matt hadn't quite understood that curling up in a warm, confined space with Mello pressed casually up against him was the kind of thing you have to remember, to catalog every touch and glance and hot breath, because that stuff will all become monumentally _important_ later in life.

And Mello is crying again, and so Matt should take him by the hand and keep him close, help him feel better, do anything - in his head he would, in his head he always does - but he can't seem to move, can't seem to say anything but, "Oh."

Then Mello is wiping at his eyes, zipping up his backpack, pulling on his boots - _leaving_. And Matt just stands there. He flicks his lighter on and off, tries to think of something to say and comes up empty. Mello's almost to the bedroom doorway and Matt thinks, isn't someone going to stop him? Where's Roger, where the fuck is Roger, where the fuck is anyone with fucking functioning limbs and words and thoughts? Mello is leaving -

And then he stops, turns around, walks back. He reaches out his hand to Matt's and for a split-second all the live-wires ignite and everything is close and warm and wonderful - and then Matt realizes that Mello is just taking his lighter. He looks at it, shakes his head, and chucks it out of the open in window.

Matt watches it go, still can't quite form words.

"Stop fucking smoking. You're gonna get - you'll - just stop, okay?" Mello says, eyes wide and shining and oddly serious.

Matt means to tell him to mind his own business, means to tell him to please, please stay, but just nods and says, "Okay."

And then Mello is gone. It takes a while for anyone to realize and an even longer time for them to get it together to send out a few cars to start looking for him. One of the teachers asks Matt if he wants to come, but he just shakes his head. When they're gone, he reaches into his nightstand drawer, pulls out his spare lighter and sparks it up.

The smoke is sharp and calming, the room is cold.

 

\---

 

Watari pours her a gin and Wedy drinks it in one long sip. She feels like hell and her hair is a mess and it says something about the desperation of the situation that she doesn't bother to fix it.

"I cannot make you stay," Watari tells her, calm and solemn and overly polite. Most of the time it's charming, but right now the withdrawn butler routine is just making her skin itch, making everything more difficult to deal with. She wishes he'd spit out the words, wishes he'd be blunt and awful and say what he means. L would.

"No," she says into her empty glass, "you can't."

Aiber's hand is heavy and it hits the table with too loud a sound. He lifts it immediately, like grappling with himself, balling his fingers into a fist and grunting out the words between his teeth. "Maybe he can't, but I sure fucking can."

Wedy smiles rough, trips her fingers along the gun at her hip. "Oh, can you?"

She taps her glass. Watari pours her more gin. She feels ugly.

This is an ugly situation. L is gone, likely on his death bed if he's not already worm's meat, and the kid who killed him is prancing around the office like he's lord and commander as all the empty-headed suits follow his every word like law. Watari's not falling for it and Aiber can barely stand still for a moment without putting his fist through an expensive piece of surveillance equipment, but what are they really going to do? What do they expect her to do?

Wedy goes where the money is, but L is dead and they are in the wreckage of it. She's not going to run headlong into a burning building for someone who's just charred bone by this point. There's a difference between risk and suicide, and she'd rather be ugly than dead.

"So you'll just run away?" Aiber says.

His hair is a mess, too, falling in thick ruffles over his eyes. He badly needs a shave. He looks like he had the first time she'd met him - Thailand, out on the street in front of the hotel where L had been staying, arguing with one of the clerks. It'd been dark, streets wet from the afternoon's rain, and there'd been mud on his leather shoes. _"I need to see him,"_ he'd kept yelling. _"You don't understand, I need to."_

She'd called L, convinced him to let him up. _"There's a pathetic European splashing around in the dirt down here and I think he belongs to you."_ He'd slept on the sofa while she and L had gotten to work on the case.

His eyes are wide and blue and desperate now, and she remembers, quite sharply and suddenly, the ways in which he can be pretty. Take away the performance, the shit cologne and the fast-talking, and he's just a sad thing like the rest of them. A fully grown man with no idea who or what he is, no idea how to properly dress himself. He looks like that now.

If Wedy were a better person, she'd stay.

She sets down her glass and turns on here heel. "I guess so," she says, and runs away. There's a flight to the States leaving in two hours and she's going to be on it.

 

\---

 

L is bleeding again. He's been bleeding a lot lately. Light's not sure if it's because of the metaphorical resonance of suffering for a greater purpose - a death on the cross without the actual crucifixion - or if he's really just that convinced that he'll one day manage to slip out of the handcuffs.

His wrist is chafed to bits, blood sliding down his arm, dirtying the metal. He sits there, staring at the cuts like he doesn't comprehend them. Light sighs and sets down his shopping.

"You've really got to stop doing that," he says, moving to sit down next to L on the bed. He'd put on sheets yesterday, added a blanket and some pillows, tried to make him comfortable, but it all looks only vaguely mussed, barely touched. L is a terrible guest just like he is terrible at most things. "If I take the cuff off and switch it to the other wrist, will you try to escape?"

L does something like roll his eyes, which is annoying, but also comfortingly familiar. "Yes."

Light huffs, takes his arm and examines the cuts, the places where the skin's been worn away with little tears. He doesn't know what to do. This isn't at all like his fantasies. L is meant to be quivering with weakness, to be offering himself up to Light, begging for forgiveness, and then they're meant to have violent sex and confess their eternal love, and at some point in all that L's supposed to realize the error of his ways and join up as the high priest of the church of Kira, or something. It had seemed completely plausible to Light during the late nights, with only his hand for company. Now it just feels slightly stupid.

He goes out of the room to wet some paper towels and resolves to purchase a first aid kit for the apartment, for moments just such as these. It's oddly domestic, in a way, if he ignores the fact that his housemate isn't there of his own volition. Light hadn't been chained to L for all those months by choice either, not really. Any time he starts to feel bad about any of this, he remembers that it's L and that L, for all his ephemeral perfection, is rather more scum than not.

He wipes L's wrist clean, gently, but not overly so, and then wraps it up in a cloth to keep the cuff from digging in too much. L says nothing and Light doesn't know what to say, finds himself trailing his fingers through the ends of L's hair more often than not, which is both calming and distracting in equal measure.

It all feels different than it had. Through this lens, it's almost predatory; L is the object and Light is viewer, touching and examining and contorting, and L abides it either out of the solemn detachment that comes of experience with being examined and contorted, or else just because he's in love with Light.

Probably a combination of both.

"Here," Light says when he's done, opening his bag and setting a slice of fresh bakery cake in front of L, "this is for you."

It feels sort of desperate, like he's a schoolboy trying to charm his crush and getting absolutely nowhere. L is increasingly unresponsive and Light thinks, not for the first time, that maybe he should just kill him after all. It would be easy, at this point. He wouldn't need the name, wouldn't even need the notebook, he could live out all of his fantasies here in this room, on this bed. He wonders why he doesn't and hands L a fork.

Watching L eat is kind of like watching one of those nature videos from Africa about lions and gazelles and feeding habits and all that. The sort of thing you should look away from, shouldn't enjoy in some deep, visceral way - but you don't change the channel and you don't look away. There are crumbs on his chin. He's a mess. He's always been a mess and it's nothing new, but it's more off-putting than usual, because now he's a mess that Light owns. He ought to be cleaned up simply be extension.

"It's not as good as Watari's," L says, without bothering to swallow first.

Light rolls his eyes and can't decide what he's feeling. "Are you five?"

"I'm sad," L tells him, setting down his fork and slumping slightly to the side, like the strings that normally hold his marionette body up are being cut, one by one, limbs going loose and defunct. "This a sad room and you're a sad person and it's making me sad."

Light hands him a cup of coffee and sips his tea. "I didn't kill you," he says, casually, like this is the kind of thing that people talk about. He sits cross-legged next to L on the bed. This is practically a date. He makes a mental note to get the place some chairs or something. "I could have and I didn't. You should be thanking me."

"There are plenty of things worse than death, Light," L says, holding out his hand. Light drops a fist-full of sugar packets into it.

"Like what?"

L shrugs. "Like being a sex slave to a mass murderer."

Light freezes, eyebrow raising. Maybe he doesn't need to buy those chairs after all. "Sex slave?" he says. "That's kind of a leap, isn't it?"

"People rarely kidnap and chain me to beds for my health," L says. He's drinking his coffee hurriedly, hasn't really had any caffeine in the last few days, and it's dripping down his chin and onto his chest. Light can't decide if it's attractive or gross. But then, L has always been an revolving mixture of those two things.

Light smiles slightly, feeling kind. "Maybe I just wanted to keep you around for conversation."

"Were that the case, I would think you might have left my clothes on," L says.

Light full out smirks.

He's got a sheet draped haphazardly across his lap, but other than that, L is naked and has been all morning. It slants the dynamics of power rather more sharply that the cuffs do, but kink aside, it's mostly just a matter of necessity. The phrase _sex slave_ has a charming ring to it, but L is not here to be a pet or a kept man. He's meant to be what he's always been, the cool, dark, quiet thing that talks with clever words and laughs without making a sound. He is a jagged monster made of humanity who lives under - and in - Light's bed, always watching and calculating and controlling, grappling for the upper hand.

His earliest memory is of a snowstorm. He likes Scandinavia, types 80 words per minute with two fingers, and sometimes does quadratic equations in his sleep. He bends well, folds into Light's hands and tastes like importance, but he is more than just a body, just like Light is. Light is physically perfect, but being reduced to nothing but his outside, his shiny exterior, is unendingly insulting. L, he's sure, feels the same, especially because his outside is just as flawed as what's within. He is constructed of flaws. He is beautiful. He is Light's.

"They're in the laundry," he tells L, idly picking up a napkin to wipe his chin. "I'll buy you more, I just - " he starts, then stops. "I'm trying to get everything in order. Do you think this is easy?"

Everything else is taken care of: Misa has retrieved the Death Note, the taskforce is eating out of the palm of his hand, Rem is behaving. Maintenance of L is the only thing eating up his time and patience, trying to keep his fed and watered and alive. The latter is particularly difficult, given his various creative attempts at escape. Aside from the mess that is his wrist, he's got several bruises from when Light had had to tackle him in order to keep him from trying to tunnel through the wall beside his bed. The bags under his eyes have gotten heavier, given that the only time that he gets any sleep is when Light drugs him into it. It's only been three days and already it's like trying to corral an especially impudent child who won't eat its vegetables. 

"I told you that it wouldn't be," L says, finishing his cake and wiping absently at his mouth. "I don't fully understand why you're doing it."

Light taps his fingers along his chin, imagines stripping L's skin off of his bones, then imagines what L's reaction would be if he told him about it. "But you partly understand," he says. He keeps his thoughts separate from his words, always, even with L.

L slumps back against the headboard, hair snapping back to hit the white walls, a pretty, jagged contrast. He sighs long and casual, like he's not naked and chained up and Light's helpless prisoner.

"You think you're in love with me, I suppose," he says, making it sound like a minor annoyance that needs to be taken care of. "Yes, this happens sometimes. It's rather a bother."

And that's, that's - no. No. He wants to get angry, _is_ getting angry, but he can't because that's exactly what L wants. He wants his power back and if he can't manage it physically, he'll take it emotionally. He's been playing this tactic all along, but Light's only just starting to see it now; with Aiber, with Wedy, with talking about all of his old cases, alluding to all of the people who have been in Light's place before. Trying to make it seem like this - _them_ \- is just a usual occurrence, something that happens all the time, something that is not a frightening, calamitous, watch-stopping event in human history.

It is, they are. It's not destiny, it's something more intelligent than that - planetary alignment; a necessity.

"I am not like any of them," Light says, leaning forward to bear down over L the way he knows L secretly likes. "You know I'm not. You know what I am."

He cards his fingers through L's hair, along his jaw, to his shoulder and lower down.

"God?" L says, in a quiet, large voice.

Light feels himself getting closer to L without moving, but he must be, because L is pressed back as far as he can go and his skin is warm against Light's hand, bare and soft and unreal. He feels like mundane deliverance, like something otherworldly and strange dropped into an unremarkable setting. Light loves him.

Everything is so much easier when he doesn't have to keep reminding himself not to.

He practically climbs onto L, covering his body like a blanket, hips lining up awkwardly, and it's not half as sexual as it is just close - like they could become the same person and not notice, fade right into each other. Light loves him, Light loves him and -

And Light's cheek is jammed into, _hard_ , and then the floor is flying up and hitting him in the back. Metal, it's metal, L hit him with metal, but there is no metal, except - the chain.

The chain is broken and L is free and his foot slams into Light's chest, knocking the wind out of him, keeping him down. L doesn't say a thing, doesn't look at him, just turns into a black and white shape that heads straight for the door. The chain is broken. That is not supposed to happen.

There's a thumping, thick and lodged in Light's ears, and he can't tell if it's the blood pumping through his skull or L repeatedly slamming himself into the doorframe. It's not a strong door, Light thinks. L is a strong man, Light thinks. There's a crack and a thump a moment later and then L's black and white shape is gone and Light is scrambling up from the floor, depth perception gone wonky and swift sounds and shapes knocking through his head. He bumps into the bed frame on the way out, but doesn't let it slow him down. He feels oddly the same as when he'd been hungover.

There's another door at the end of the hall, this one with a deadbolt, and L probably won't be able to get through it, but he might, _he might_ , and then everything's poisoned and ruined and gone.

He'd tell them. Light trips over his own feet, socks slipping on the cheap linoleum in a flurry of panic. L would tell them everything and they would know and they would stop him, kill him. He'd have to kill them, all of them, his father and the team, Watari, Wedy, Aiber - and wouldn't that be fun? - _all_ of them. He'd have to erase all the servers, destroy anything incriminating. He'd have to raze the world, and it's _not time yet_.

He pads along the hall, almost caught up to L, and at that moment he understands what L has been talking about. This is dangerous. _He_ is dangerous. His is a bomb and Light is keeping the bomb in bed with him. It could go off at any moment, get out, and then it's all ruined, everything good eaten away by necessary chaos.

The door is getting closer and then L's body falls, hitting the floor with an echoing thud. Light's mind registers it before his feet do and he practically trips over L when he reaches him. Rem is floating there, sticking out halfway through the wall, an empty needle in her great, ugly hand.

Light breathes out, straightens up.

Took her long enough.

"Good girl," he says without looking at her.

He reaches down to turn L's body onto its side, instead of face forward on the dirty ground. He really needs to see about getting this place cleaned out. He can't get a maid service, of course, on the chance that they'd find L chained up and call the police. Maybe he could write in the Death Note for a criminal to come to this building with a mop and bucket before their heart attack? Although, it would have to be someone who would realistically do such a thing, or else the instruction won't go through. Perhaps he could find an criminal janitor? There must be plenty of those.

Rem droops there, disapproving of him with her gaunt, skeletal face. "This is your worst plan yet."

Light almost laughs, overtaken by a manic sort of relief. L had gotten close, but he didn't succeed - couldn't possibly. It's terrifying and brilliant, a thrilling game that plays through Light's head. He sighs, leans back against the wall, and says, "Be polite or I won't allow Misa to come by and visit you."

"Maybe I'll kill you and go see her myself," Rem says. Light would assume that she's joking if she were Ryuk, but she's too sullen and humorless to even understand the concept of teasing.

"You wouldn't," he says, straightening up to stand over L. "My death would devastate her. It'd break her fragile little heart." He nods at L's crumpled body and Rem sighs, swooping down to pick him up and turning back towards the hall. Light will have to go get a sturdier chain before L wakes up. Also, get his clothes out of the wash.

Rem moves like the ghost of someone who was never alive, doesn't look at him when she says, "Misa Amane does not have a fragile heart."

 

\---

 

Misa's room is clean for once. There are usually useless, pretty things scattered all over the place: bras and hairbrushes and magazines with her face winking, giddy and lovable, up at her from the cover. Everything is in neat boxes today. She and Light are moving in together. He's only doing it so that he can use the Death Note out from under his family's watch, of course, but still.

She and Light are moving in together.

She chews her pen, taps it on her lip. She feels prettier than she has in months. Confinement was okay, she supposes, but there'd been eyes on her all the time, watching and tracking and judging and she just hadn't been able to _breathe_. Now the only pair of eyes on her is wide and laughing and yellow, like the twin headlights of some killing machine.

Ryuk's alright company, but she misses Rem. She'd been quiet and heavy, felt more like a shield than an annoying pet. She'd had all the answers herself, had never asked stupid questions.

"He's keeping Ryuzaki around because they're _friends_ , Ryuk," Misa repeats. She pries at the plastic of the pen with her teeth, knows she shouldn't - nervous habit, has to go, her agent had said so - but she does it anyway. Misa does all kinds of things that she knows she shouldn't.

"Really?" Ryuk asks from where he's floating upside-down, wide grin splitting his face. "So they're not doing sex, because Light says - "

" _Having_ sex, Ryuk," she corrects. "Humans _have_ sex."

Ryuk flips around, balancing his chin on a pointy hand. Still smiling. "Right, sorry. Japanese is hard."

Misa rolls her eyes, taps her pen again. It's gel, light blue, has sparkles in it. There are twenty-six names written on the page of the Death Note in front of her and she traces them with her eyes, the tips of her fingers. It's sort of fantastic, if she thinks about it - and she doesn't often think about it. People are dying. She is killing them with light blue gel ink.

"I'll buy you a grammar book, if you want," she says to Ryuk, not really paying attention anymore.

Distancing herself. Everything is easier if she distances herself from it. The dead bodies become statistics in the newspaper and Light's smile blots it all out, makes murder into shining, golden justice. Light's smile can do anything.

"Nah," Ryuk says, "buy apples if you're buying something. Anyway - "

"Yes," Misa almost snaps, then stops herself. Slow breaths, even breaths. Think of Light's smile, the ends of his hair touching his eyelashes; warm hands, smooth skin, hers in a way that he isn't anyone else's. She starts again. "Yes, they're having sex. So, what? What am I supposed to do about it?"

Ryuk shrugs his jagged shoulders, moving like a caustic puppet. "Don't know. You could kill L."

Misa's pen stops tapping.

"I couldn't," she says. "Light would be sad."

Light fucks L and doesn't fuck her, but what is that, really? Her eyes are something L doesn't and can't ever have. She sees death and knows death and Light needs that, needs her. He doesn't need sex or friendship or L, not really. It's just something to occupy himself with. L is a toy, but Misa is a tool, and only one of those things is indispensable. 

Ryuk shrugs again, gets packing tape stuck on his fingers and twirls off in a fit of otherworldly amusement, calling back as he goes, "I didn't know Light was happy."

Misa taps her pen.

 

\---

 

There's a church down the road from Wammy's, old and unused. There's a church down the road from everything in England, it seems. L goes there when they're zipped up in stifling winter coats and sent out onto the grounds to do what is widely referred to as "play" by everyone at Wammy's who is over the age of ten. L doesn't play. L knows how to do everything, but he doesn't know how to do that.

B follows him. He follows him around corners and down the gravel path and through the cold sunlight that flickers between the dying limbs of ancient elm trees. B watches his hair toss in the light wind and traces the outline of his profile with the tips of his fingers. He wants to draw L's face on the back of his hand, wants to imprint it somewhere it can never change or grow or go away.

Run, run, run. L always runs when he notices B following him, skips over stones and stumbles heavily through the quiet fall morning, always straight to the church.

"What are you doing?" B will say.

"Go back inside," L will say, standing before the heavy stone doors.

"It's ugly," B will say, or something like it.

And it is. Dark, wet moss grows on the sides and there are bugs and mice and dead and dying things inside. The stained-glass windows have all been smashed or removed, carted off to street fairs and flea markets; a corner of the Virgin Mary's face sold for a few pounds. The church was built by humanity and it's been left to decay by humanity. God has nothing to do with it. It's ugly.

"I like it," L will say.

"I like you," B will say, or sometimes, "I love you," if he's feeling comical and brave and half out of himself.

The wind will whistle like a nasal ghost through the old stones of the building and something will flap its broken wing somewhere far off. B will hear it, or think that he can.

"Go back inside," L will say again.

B will never listen.

 

\---

 

He wakes slowly, not shifting sharply from a dreamscape to stark reality, but blinking lazily as one fades into the other. His childhood becomes the present, his tiny unpracticed limbs elongate into those of a grown man, and the old church down the path from Wammy's, lined by towering elms and visceral tethers of nostalgia, becomes the basement level of an abandoned warehouse two miles outside of London.

B sits up, feels as if his organs have liquified - a metaphorical ebola, beautiful in its ecstatic nausea - and breathes in the sick scent of late morning garbage.

He's been here for only a day, had snuck onto an L.A. to London flight the night before, then stole a cab while the driver was having a smoke break. He'd driven it to the edge of town, found a rat-infested building vacant of squatters, and set himself up in it like a hotel room. People are - can be - lovely, with their bones and teeth and hollow laughter, but they crowd things, make it loud and hard to think straight, send his thoughts running in uneven jumps like a arrhythmia of the heart, instead of the flat, still line of death.

He stands with several quick cracks of his spine, pulling on his shirt and picking up of the jar he'd knocked over in his sleep. Laudanum, undiluted, cheap for the common man and free for B's clever fingers and fast feet. And one of the only things that will put him to sleep properly. It's not that his mind is filled with horrors to keep him awake at night or anything in that maudlin vein - he's actually rather fond of horrors, as it goes - it's just how his body works. He doesn't need sleep.

But he wants it. His head gets crowded and he needs things to go dark and dreamy, to corral his thoughts back into their proper order and make everything clean agin.

The dream about the church is familiar, comforting in its way, even though it hadn't ever truly happened like that in waking life. B would follow L, sure, but never fast enough, and most days the chapel doors would already be closed behind L, and he'd have to chase him inside, through the pews and behind the tabernacle, an improvised game of hide-and-seek played within the moth-eaten curtains surrounding the smashed-in windows.

He had once tackled L into one of the stone walls, cracking his head solidly against the stone. The blood had gotten all over B's hands, dark and thick and slightly terrifying - because the idea of Lawliet dying had been the relative equivalent of a nuclear warhead decimating the city of B's mind, cutting his existence into the jagged, finger-pricking pieces it had been in before they'd met. He'd panicked. He'd been 9 and L had been 11 and they were both already trained in the basics of first-aid, but B's hands had shaken and his feet had stomped and he hadn't - he couldn't -

L had spoken slowly, given directions in his quiet, uninterested voice on how to staunch the bleeding, how to keep him awake. Neither of them had even thought to go back Wammy's, hadn't been found until Roger, noting the disappearance, had sent a groundskeeper out after them.

B had never apologized. The injury had struck him as deserved. L had never asked him to.

He packs up his meager supplies and moves out into the street. He assumes his cab must have been re-stolen by this point, so doesn't even bother checking for it. He ought to steal a car that people won't constantly be flagging down, besides.

There's a woman is in a bra and skirt standing on the next corner, shirt thrown over one arm, high heels clutched in the hand that doesn't hold a cigarette up to her smudge-red lips. She's not very pretty, but appealing in an indulgent way. B would fuck her if he was someone who knew how to indulge.

"Looking for something, love?" she calls to him. Leeds accent, low and smoke-harsh.

B smiles wide and far from charming. "Why yes," he says, turning to face her fully. There's a momentary flash of unease in her eyes, but in her line of work, you'll never get any business if you turn away every man who makes you a bit uncomfortable.

Her blood doesn't splatter the alley walls quite as nicely as he'd imagined it would, but there's still a catharsis to it. She doesn't put up as much of a fight as she could, almost as if she's resigned to it, and her chest cavity is warm and slightly enigmatic. He feels like a poor man's Jack the Ripper, killing prostitutes in London. Maybe he could stick around, make a game of it, but there's no investigator here that's clever enough to play with him properly.

He can't stay, anyway. He needs to catch the next train to Winchester.

 

\---

 

Light is on him when he wakes up, face pressed into the crook of L's neck, warm breath puffing against his skin. L tries to shift, feels his head reel and realizes that his movement is impeded by more than just the body resting on top of him. The metal clanks and he feels the cuffs cutting into both of his wrists, feels the bandage soft on one, and resigns himself to the fact that his most successful escape attempt was not particularly successful.

Still, progress is progress.

But Light is asleep, half on him and quiet in the windowless dark, and it's one of those surreal moments where everything feels too fake and ridiculous to really be real, but then he breathes in and out and time continues lagging on and it becomes inarguable that reality just has more of a sense of humor than it's typically given credit for.

So he lies there in bed with Light, which has lately become more habitual than is healthily navigable, trying to catalog his circumstances into something that can be measured and understood. The current state of affairs can, perhaps, be summed up by the following:

(1) Light is Kira. (2) Light has become rather fond of him. (3) Light has kidnapped him.

What this all ultimately leads to is the assurance that, when he gets out, he will have more than enough evidence necessary to prosecute Light - if not to a court of law, then to the taskforce, at the very least. So then the question becomes, does he want to? Light has laid all of it out on the board, shown his hand, made the game too easy. Though, there are loose ends - how did he get Raye Penber's name, how did he find Naomi Misora, what connection could he possibly have to B?

The last question strikes L dully, uncomfortably. He tries not to think of Beyond if he can help it, occupies himself with things far away from Wammy's and their tragic little world therein, and doesn't particularly like to consider anything to do with his childhood - apart from Watari, of course, but then he has an almost unconscious tendency to mentally distance Watari's current role in his life from the Quillish Wammy of his youth. There are cruel truths wrapped up with the thoughts of Quillish Wammy, just as their are with B, and Roger. Even in Mello and Near he can see an unflattering reflection of his own upbringing, the unfortunate realties that shape people like him, like Beyond Birthday.

And maybe one of the most appealing things about Light is that he is so separate from all of that. Reality means nothing in the world of Kira, where people die from pen ink and ugly gods float at your shoulder. Light's plane of existence is a fantasy-scape, a dream kingdom that he's trying to build for himself, and even though it will all ultimately come to nothing - the way every brilliant attempt at this sort of social and governmental upheaval has - it is still mesmerizing in its chaotic precision.

The basic problem with Kira is not that he is a murderer. L is a murderer, too, if not necessarily a direct one, as are plenty of the greatest men and women documented in the history books. Humanity is a species of murderers. The problem with Light isn't even his ideals. In theory, they're really quite nice, but most things are nicer in theory than they are in practice, and the innate goodness of man that Light seems determined to seek out and drag bodily to the foreground is one of them. Kira's plan is brilliant in its conception, the only true problem with it being that it will never, ever work.

Criminals are not born, they are created, and man's inhumanity to man is not something that can be wiped out with a notebook and a lot of free time. The Old Testament God couldn't even manage it with a flood.

Light is peaceful in sleep, the mask firmly on even now, and L wonders if he dreams in doubts, if any part of that pretty head is filled with uncertainty over his decisions. If he can see the ruination of his budding new empire that's so clear to L even in waking life.

Perhaps he dreams mundane things, extracts from the normal life he's denied himself. A house in the suburbs, a good job, a pretty wife who can throw dinner parties and smile wide. Maybe a child. Maybe two. All the things that people like L aren't and never were going to have, the things that people like Light are born right into. That's all gone now. He's sabotaged his comfort to make way for meaning, a quiet revolution in his childhood bedroom. He's changed the rules for himself.

L admires him as much as he envies him, and condescends to him even more still. Light doesn't yet understand the gravity of his sacrifice because he hasn't realized that he's given it all away for nothing. There is no kingdom for the righteous at the end of the road, not on earth, and not for people who do what Light's done. Not for people like L.

L can't tell the time from where he is, but it must be morning or close to it, because Light's internal clock is rigorous and he's shifting awake now. He rolls off of L slightly, then rolls back, touching hid bare arms, breathing into his neck, the warmth from his skin an apparent draw in Light's barely conscious state. It's only then that L fully registers that he's clothed again, back in his white shirt and jeans and - he reaches down to check - underwear, too. They smell like an unfamiliar fabric softener. The movement wakes Light a little further and he sits up, yawning. He's sleep-soft and tempting and L would rather like to fuck him and maybe would if this weren't a hostage situation and he wasn't miffed about that fact.

"Morning," Light tells him, soft smile altering the air in the room.

L doesn't hold back his eye-roll. He sits up, surprised when his arms move and keep moving, unimpeded in stretching to their full length. He looks down at the cuffs. They're different.

"This is my chain," he says dully, not looking back up at Light. There's a bit of plaster around his wrist, presumably cleaned and bandaged meticulously, because Light is like that.

He shifts lazily, reaching over to trace the metal with his fingers, sliding along the bones of L's hand. "It's just as much mine," he says, so casually that L feels half-transplanted by it, into a world where all they need to do is drink coffee and read the paper and exist near one another. "I must have earned partial ownership given the amount of time I spent voluntarily imprisoned by it."

Light's smile is a transforming thing. L blinks at it, feels uneasy, like he should be running and hiding and fighting. He's tired, though, and doesn't remember the last time he ate.

"You went back to headquarters," he says.

"Obviously," Light returns, standing from the bed and picking up his watch from the side-table. "It'd be slightly suspicious if I disappeared at the same time that you did, wouldn't it?" There's a niftily little spark in his eyes that L doesn't like, reeking of ardent superiority. "The Kira investigation has been a bit on hold in order to make time for the search for you, or your body." He looks in the mirror, a recent addition the the otherwise bare walls, and begins sorting out his hair. "Given that the only people who know what you look like are on the investigation team and that Watari has forbidden us from describing your appearance, it's not going particularly well."

"Watari's alive?" L asks. He hadn't liked to think about it, but Kira's track record had suggested that he wouldn't be.

"Everyone's alive," Light says.

L assumes that he's referring to the investigation team and not, say, everyone on the entire planet. He knows this not just from basic logical reasoning but because Light has brought in the paper the last few times he's been to visit - hasn't seemed to have any qualms with letting L know the date or time; three days since his imprisonment, last L had checked, probably four now. Kira's back and more committed to the cause than ever, is seems. Light has to have Misa doing at least half, if not most, of the judgements, given the amount of time he's been with L over the past few days. Close and crowding, on him and touching him, unceasingly - not even particularly sexually, just _touching_. Skin contact. He's even tried to hold his hand a few times, although L had promptly shaken him off in turn.

It should be hard for L to rationalize the darling lover boy in here with the exacting killer making the headlines out there, but it's not. Not really. L has had months to get used to the unsettling disconnect between Light's various masks.

He's playing a part now as he gets dressed, acting as if this situation is the pinnacle of normalcy, using his school-boy tenor instead of his true voice. "If someone isn't a criminal and doesn't pose a clear and present danger to Kira's reign," he says, straightening his collar, "then it wouldn't be right for me to kill them."

L snorts, watches the shifting lines of Light's body.

"I posed a danger," he says. It's an opposite situation, but a relevant one nonetheless. "I still do."

Light looks over his shoulder at him. "That's cute that you think so."

L stands so quickly that the chain makes a clanging, cacophonous noise. He feels an expression trying to twist its way onto his face - nostrils flaring, teeth gritting - and shoves it down.

"Oh, am I cute?" he says, voice a thin ring of disdain. "Am I your pet detective now? Feed me cake and pat my head when I'm good, asphyxiate me when I'm bad." He shakes his arm, causing another orchestra of clinking noise. "Are we going to live happily ever after like this?"

Light watches him with wide, almost shocked eyes, as if an outburst of disapproval from his captive is something he had never in a million years foreseen. He almost seems to be under the impression that L will just go along with this, will just fade into him, overtaken by love or something ridiculous in that vein.

He opens his mouth, but doesn't speak. The grey of the lowlight in the room paints him in long shadows, making him seem tall and grim and fantastical. He's still such a beautiful thing.

L shakes his head. "You're so deluded," he says. "It's actually kind of striking. If I were a starving artist I'd probably make you my muse." He lifts a hand, using his expanded freedom of movement to scratch at his head. He doesn't know what to do, to say. The game has gone to a standstill and he doesn't know what pieces to play now that the board is gone. He gets quieter, more sober; looks down at his hands, then back up. "You're going to lose, Light. You're going to lose and it's because of this. Me."

Light still doesn't speak and L is starting to realize that it's on purpose, that he's leaving L alone to flounder with his own words, to try to make sense of his own convictions. L breathes the other things he wants to say out in a heavy breath, expelling the sentiments without giving them voice. He's so tired.

Light steps forward. His shirt is wrinkled and he has bed-head and sleepy, adoring eyes, and when he cups L's jaw it feels like what Adam touching God must have felt like, except much dirtier.

"If you were really so clever, you would have killed me," L breathes against Light's skin when he's pulled close, letting himself fade into the warmth. He's tired. All he does is sleep now, but he's still so tired.

"Clever isn't everything," Light says into his hair.

"Oh, isn't it?"

Light skates his hands down L's back, sort of clutching him, and it's slightly shameful how enjoyable it is. Light has become a comforting thing to him and, at some point, L has become a thing in need of comfort. It ignites in his mind and, quite suddenly, everything becomes a panic and he's twisting out of Light's reach. The chain jangles from where it's hooked onto the best post, and if Light wanted, he could chase L, corner him against the bed and do that whole violent, overbearing sex thing that he's so fond of.

He doesn't, just stands there, hands at his sides, looking at L. There's a curious import to Light's eyes now that Kira's at the helm, a strange sense of appraisal in his every glance. Justice is meant to be blind, but half of Kira's power lies in faces. A person without eyesight surely couldn't do any damage with the Death Note, even if the rules were in brail.

"There's more to it," Light says. He's not following a proper line of conversation as such, but L still knows what he means.

L looks at him steadily, resolves not to argue this because it's circular and always will be, and any agreements that they can come up with will be tentative at best, fading into nothing as soon as L escapes and the game is back on. This is war and Light is insisting on a recess and L is mixing his metaphors and, really, there are no good choices to be made here and he can't, he can't -

"Tell me there's not," Light says, stepping forward, voice even. "Go ahead, perform. That's what you do, isn't it?" He looks at L expectantly. "Make a moving speech about justice, lay out all of your ugly parts. I'm waiting." He rounds on L without really moving, presence fanning out and taking up too much space. "Tell me all the ways in which it's very simple, how much you're not in love with me."

He lays it out almost like a business proposal, an offer on the table. Like L's answer even matters. The curious thing about Light is that he sounds very sane sometimes, even when the substance of what he's communicating is anything but. There's a sobering, trustworthy card he likes to play and he's laying it down hard now.

L looks away. "I'm hungry," he says, watching the cuffs slide around his wrists.

Light stops, looks as if he's going to say something weighty and imploring, but changes tactics at the last second, shaking his head. "I can't stand you, you know," he says, leaning forward to plant a kiss on L's temple. It's chaste and quick and shiver-warm.

"I thought you loved me," L says dully, leaning back onto the bed. 

Light follows him, pressing close, overtaking. L's senses thrill with the feel of lithe teenage boy and his insides twist tighter. He's getting hard, and from the twitch of Light's lips against his neck, he's realized.

"It's interesting, isn't it? How that works," he says, pressing his lips to L's chin, his jaw. His hands slide along his hips, tickle his rib cage and sides. "I feel things for you that cannot possibly exist," Light murmurs, rocking his hips softly against L's. "Human behavior makes so much more sense now."

L almost laughs at that, hair tickling his ears. Light feels unbearably _nice_ against him. "And yet how to navigate it is still a mystery to you."

"Not one that I need to solve," Light says. "I don't need to be a person."

L rolls his eyes, slipping his foot up the back of one of Light's calves. "Ah, yes, I forgot. You're God."

"I am justice," Light tells him, head buried against L's neck, "I am salvation." He's predictably very turned on by this and the rate of his thrusts speeds up, pressed tight against the crook of L's hip. "I am truth and - "

"What is this, one of those door-to-door church spiels?" L says, hand running down Light's back. It feels excellent, of course, but that doesn't obscure the fact that this is all more than a little ridiculous. "Are you going to give me a pamphlet, too?"

Light grunts, glaring up at him. The hint of hormonal embarrassment in his face, which he quickly quashes and replaces with vague distain, almost makes this whole kidnapping thing worth it. L sits up, shifting Light, who by now is more or less in his lap.

"If you let me have a shower," he says almost lazily, feeling a hint of power returning, "I'll jerk you off." He keeps his voice low, tempting, cheek pressed to the side of Light's jaw, breath whispering across his ear. Light shivers, makes a noise that sounds suspiciously desperate and, apparently realizing this, stands abruptly and roughly unlocks L from the bedpost, wrapping the other end of the chain around his hand and leading L off to the bathroom the way one would lead a pet.

The shower is nowhere as nice as it had been at the investigation headquarters and the both of them barely fit, skin pressed to wet skin, but it prompts something like a return to the strange normalcy that they'd existed in for the last few months, a war ruled more by domestic grievances than murderous ones. If L were a good prisoner, he's sure he'd fight Light, wouldn't want to touch him or kiss him or fuck him, but part of L - beyond the intellect, the measured cruelty - is this lank, pale body and it _wants_ , demands things from everyone who gets close enough.

His hands snake around Light's cock, teasing him, making his gasp and shove and mutter death threats under his labored breath. It's a heady, powerful feeling and he milks it for all it's worth, turning Light into a soft, golden puddle, making him writhe his hips prettily.

He breathes warms spots on Light's neck, holds him up when he comes, legs going weak and shaky; still a helpless little boy, even now.

"L," Light sighs, head falling back onto the cool tile.

He's late for work.

 

\---

 

The honeymoon period comes to a sudden end.

Light is taking the train back from headquarters to his and Misa's new apartment - partly to appease her, mostly just to pick up some clothes to take back to L's - after a determined but fruitless day of searching for their lost leader. He'd done a fair bit of staring off into the distance, apparently wallowing in the agony of a lost friend, while in actuality mostly just thinking about the lean curves of L's thighs, the lines of his back. Fucking him on and against various household objects.

If it were anyone else, it'd be slightly pathetic. As it is, it's just glorious, a torrent made out of beautiful things.

A man has thrown himself in front of one of the trains - not an unheard of occurrence in Tokyo - and although no one else was hurt, it causes quite a hold up at the station. Light thinks about walking the rest of the way, but he stops when he sees the screen, news headline flashing across in vibrant type: _12-year old boy found murdered, raped in Shibuya. Suspect in custody._

A photo of a balding, waxy man with an uneven beard and little round eyes appears on the screen, name written boldly below. _Kaito Hidaka, age 44. Elementary school tutor._ His identity is so blatant, so direct, it feels as if the media is purposefully giving it to Kira, saying, _"Here, you can have the son of a bitch."_ They show the murdered boy's class photo. He's small for his age, like a frightened rabbit, wide black eyes staring up into the camera.

Light feels sick. His fingers twitch.

Before he can think about, he's ducking into the subway bathroom, pulling the pieces of the notebook out of his wallet that he's kept for safe keeping and scribbling _Kaito Hidaka_ across one in thin, looping Kanji. The rage pours out of him, quick as it had blossomed, and then he just feels the thick ooze of power, a heady, cloying sensation. It's what justice tastes like, he knows. A little bit of the rot has been washed away and a glorious cleanliness seeps into him then.

He leans against the bathroom wall, smiling to himself. He gets a few odd looks, but nothing more, and when he comes out, he's coiffed and perfect again. He changes his course, doesn't bother with his own apartment but goes straight to L, picking up an evening newspaper along the way.

The first thing he does when he walks in the door, not even acknowledging Rem's presence, is toss the paper into L's lap. It smacks him in the chest and falls to his lap, unrolling to reveal the top story.

"12-year-old boy," Light says, going straight for the small hotplate he'd brought in the other day and heating up some water for his tea. "Raped and murdered. Corpse mutilated. Liver cut out." He cuts a sharp look at L over his shoulder. " I suppose you think that the man who did this should be allowed to go free?"

L looks down at the paper, then back at Light, very slowly. "On the contrary, I think he should pay for his crimes. Although, you can't be completely sure that the murderer is a man, but - "

"I can," Light says. "They caught him. I killed him."

"Ah," L says, mind apparently locking onto Light's point. He sets the newspaper down, curling his legs up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. "It must have been awfully fast, for them to have a court case this soon."

Light rolls his eyes. He doesn't have time for this. "There was no case. It just happened yesterday."

"Then how can you be sure that he was guilty? Because it was on the news?" L scoffs. He falls back against the headboard. He's always falling back at things in a big huff and Light wishes he'd cut it the fuck out.

"It was open and shut. The man was his tutor, he was obviously - "

"But you don't know, do you?" L says, sitting up again. "You have no idea of what you're doing." He laughs and it's not a kind laugh. "Here I was thinking that Kira was a brilliant mastermind, only to find that you're just some boy who throws a tantrum and scribbles away in his diary every time he's confronted with something troubling in the world."

His loathing for L then is thick and flaring, rising up like a disease. He hates him more than he hates Kaito Hidaka.

"Something _troubling_? A child was raped and murdered, you despicable bastard," Light snaps, feeling his lip curl. L might as well be a child rapist and murderer.

"And what have you done?" he says. He could stand, anyone else would in his position, but he stays curled up on the bed. "How have you helped anything? You didn't solve the case, you didn't even try. Who knows if you got the right man, but who cares, right? As long as someone's heart stops then close enough, I suppose." He shakes his head, looks at Light with wide eyes and it's not just posturing, is it? L really thinks these things. "You're not justice and you're certainly not a god. You're a senseless, violent, unbearably human little mess of a thing, tearing down everything in your path because _you can_."

What the fuck is wrong with L that he thinks these things?

"Oh, but you're a paragon of innocence and noble intentions, huh?" Light bites back, across the room and standing over L now. He's always standing over L these days. "At least I'm _trying_ to do good. You're just trying to amuse yourself, maybe get a good fuck or two in the bargain." He breathes the words onto L's face, watches them slip in around his eyes, between his lips and down his throat. "You're pathetic. Do you think I haven't realized? Do you think I don't see you for what you are?"

He doesn't notice when he puts his hand on L's chest but he does notice when it's shoved off. He moves it back, fingers grappling with the material of his shirt, pressing down hard. He can feel L's body heat against his palm, the steady twitch of his heartbeat. There is blood in him, pulsing under his skin. Light could open in the right vein and it would all just come pouring out, like a leak in a boat. He could drown him in it. He could drown them both.

L stops, tilts his head to the side. "If I fight, will you rape me?" he asks lowly. It sounds like nothing but distant curiosity.

Light pauses, imagines the scene playing out, imagines pinning L to the bed the way he so likes to pin L to beds. Imagines truly hurting him, making him bleed, killing him and mutilating the body. Removing his liver.

His had drops quickly away from L's chest.

"You'd like that, I suppose," he says, disgust apparent in his voice. "You can suffer and fight and play the martyr card, and still get what you want in the end. This is what you want, isn't it?" He leans in, close so L can feel him there and understand that he is something to be afraid of. " _Sometimes I want to pretend the only thing that's ever happened to me is you,_ " Light whispers, just cruelly enough to be a tease. "Do you want to know what I think?"

"Not really," L murmurs, voice unsteady, "no." His eyes are bulging wide, but he doesn't look afraid so much as he does curious, waiting with bated breath, as if Light is just a show being performed for nothing but his amusement. 

It makes him angry, make his fingers twitch dully.

"I think you were telling the truth," he says. "When you said it to me, when you say it to anyone. You're so disgusted with yourself, with all the things you've done, all the people you've let inside, that you want to erase it all. With every case you try to become someone new. You shuck off your old skin, dirty and blemished and used, and play it like it's first love, the first touch." He twists the words up on his tongue, making them sharp enough to pierce skin. "You're reborn with every crime you stop, every suspect you pinpoint. You solve cases not to absolve your sins, but to try to hide from them."

This is the point at which, on any other day during any other fight, Light would simply pin him to the bed. He can't quite make himself do it. The face of the 12-year-old boy who's name he can't remember is staring back at him from behind his eyes and it aches in ways that he knows that L can't understand. L doesn't care about that boy. L doesn't care about anything.

"But the eye of justice cannot be blinded," Light says, staring stonily down at L. "I see you for what you are and I hold you in judgement."

He waits for a moment for L to say something, to apologize, to admit to Light's point, to tell him pretty, redeeming things about the places he's been and the people he's saved and the crimes he's solved. Good things, true things.

_"There are no true things about me, Light-kun."_

L doesn't speak and after a moment more, Light goes, door falling dully shut behind him.

 

\---

 

London is a shithole, as it turns out.

Mello's boots are dirty and his hair hasn't been washed in four days and he smells like a pub toilet. Food is cheap and sold on every corner - from coffee shops and market stalls and fast-talking men with thick accents who call out orders - but one can only live off of curry and hot cocoa for so long, and room and board are harder to come by. It snows too often and everyone walks too fast and knocks his shoulders and he's very tired and he misses L.

He hasn't seen L in over two years and hadn't expected to see him anytime soon, but dead people are so much easier to miss and the sense of loss has more shape to it by this point than his ambition. If L is alive, then he has no idea how to find him, and if he's not -

Then Mello has no idea how to anything.

L isn't like a brother to him, or a father, or anything stupid and kitschy like that, but he is something, a nameless force that exists to be aspired to. A thin smile and unimpressed eyes and a voice that talks in words that Mello wants nothing more than to understand.

Almost cruel, in his way, but then you don't speak ill of the dead, and you don't speak ill of L anyway. He's L.

Mello spends all of his time with that in mind, which is probably why he keeps seeing a thin shadow with a mess of black hair skirting around at the edges of his vision, following him on soundless footsteps. The shadow smiles sometimes, even though it should be too dark to make out its teeth.

He coughs, pulls his coat tighter. London is a shithole.

 

\---

**tbc.**

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Christ, there were a lot of different POVs in this chapter, eh? People in reviews keep telling me Light is likable in this and I agree, but I don't know how it happened. Anyway, things to look forward to/fear in the next chapter: there is going to be Mikami. He's completely unnecessary to the plot at this point, I just… like him. I have a feeling I'm not doing author's notes right? This reads like free-form poetry more than anything else.
> 
> But still, thank you all so much. Your support means a whole lot.


	10. far

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took a bit longer to get out than the usual. RL combined with scattered motivations/excessive writing angst. I didn't get much of a response to the last chapter (which honestly isn't a big deal - let's face it, I'd probably this writing this fucking thing even if I was the last person in the fandom) but I got kind of nervous, all - did I fuck up? is it terrible? I've no idea what I'm doing in the first place and would have no qualms about being told that I'm doing it wrong. con-crit is appreciated and encouraged. don't have something nice to say? say something anyway! I'd really appreciate any response, just so I can gage how I'm doing.
> 
> Okay, comment-PSA over. You can also feel free to ignore all my notes, skim this mess for the porny bits and never say a word to me. No hard feelings.

_"I wanted to hurt you  
but the victory is that I could not stomach it."_  
\- Richard Siken, _Snow and Dirty Rain_

 

\---

 

"I can't talk to you right now," is the first thing Light says that morning, dropping off a takeaway bag of mini-waffles and unhooking L's chain from the bedpost to let him have his toilet break.

"Are we in a fight?" L asks, finger to his lips. "Should I be passive aggressive at you?"

Light's sigh is familiar and long-suffering and, for a moment, L can almost pretend that they're back at the investigation headquarters and nobody has kidnapped anybody.

"I don't care what you do, honestly," he says, hooking the chain onto the towel rack and going to lean against the doorjamb. "The judgements have started again, I have a ton of work to do with the taskforce today, Misa's having some sort interior decorating related mental breakdown, I have university classes to make up, and, on top of that, I'm supposed to be having dinner with my family tonight. I really don't have to time to deal with you today."

L finishes quickly, washing his hands to an apparently unsatisfactory degree - from the scathing look Light gives them - and rattles his arm as a signal that he's done and would like to go out an eat his waffles now. It's only been a week and already they've stepped into a sort of pattern, made easier by the fact that it's more or less what they were doing before, only with their positions reversed.

L misses being the one with the key.

He's also misses the first few days of his imprisonment, before the bout of godly mania that had sent Light into a tailspin of holier-than-thou monologues about the nature of justice. Ever since Kaito Hidaka he's been completely insufferable, and very psychically distant, as if he's afraid that if he gets to close, L is going to fall onto his cock and insist upon the whole sex slave thing.

L has only fucked Kira once - still has the faded marks around his neck from the encounter - and it hadn't gone especially well for for him, so he's not looking for a repeat performance quite yet, no matter the edge it would likely give him. Light had been different, had been soft and needy and young, easily appeased with hands and lips and warm sighs. Light is gone, though, and the man here now is just someone who's gotten his signals crossed, who's thought up some pretty ideas and convinced himself that being in love with L would put a nice spin on this whole story.

"Why don't you kill me?" L asks, pulling out one of the waffles with the ends of two fingers. The syrup drips across his hand, slides down his wrist. He licks it and feels better, like he can think slightly straight. "Mmmh."

Light wrinkles his nose and tosses him a napkin. "That's disgusting. Use a fork." He ignores L's question.

"I mean it, Light," L says, not bothering to finish chewing. "We don't talk, we don't have sex. We don't even smack each other around anymore. I'm sure you could get my name fairly easily, and even if you couldn't, a high enough dose of that drug you so love to put me down with and I'd be gone. Out of your hair. What's the point of keeping me alive?" He sucks on one of his fingers. "You could just as easily get a plant. They're less maintenance and serve more or less the same function."

Light folds his hands in front of him, watching L eat with an expression of vague interest, but not responding to - or even seeming to hear - a single word that he says. He glances at his watch. "You need a shower. Finish that and I'll give you ten minutes in the bathroom before I go."

L watches him, considers hanging himself with the chain just for something do, then takes another bite of his waffle.

He showers quickly, methodically, and Light stands in the bathroom doorway and watches him. There's no particular lust in his eyes, looks as if he could be thinking over his lunch plans or what shirt he's going to wear tomorrow. When L's finished, he walks straight out of the shower, not bothering with a towel - he never does when left to his own devices, not since he's been old enough to bathe himself; Watari never complains about the excess water. Light has always been far less lenient, but instead of the towel to the face and the fond admonishment that L's used to, Light just sets one down on the bed next to him as he chains him back to the headboard.

L doesn't reach for it, lets his hair drip patterns on the bedsheets. The air in the room is stale and he nearly chokes on it when he speaks, hurriedly, all in a rush, because Light's hand is on the doorknob and L is quietly desperate for him to stay.

"Is it beautiful yet," he calls, "your brave new world?"

It could be a dig, but he doesn't say it like one, just asks a question.

For the first time all day, Light smiles at him, glance shooting over his shoulder. It makes him appealing in a way that L nearly always forgets when not directly presented with it. "All in good time," he says, and lets the door thud behind him on the way out.

 

\---

 

Aiber's thrusts are long and slow and the kid underneath him looks uncomfortable, but he doesn't protest and Aiber wouldn't hear him, anyway. He's got black hair and wide eyes, is a little too Japanese for it to be exact, but Aiber's not even going to pretend to not be doing what he's doing. L is dead or some such, but the world goes on, and boys with pale skin and thin wrists aren't hard to find in Tokyo.

His phone rings and he lets it go to voicemail, because pumping his hips is more important at this point. The boy mewls, says something too fast and breathy for Aiber to understand or care to.

"Hush," he grits, stilling a moment later, a shudder running down his back.

The hotel room is dirty and too full of furniture, a startling contrast to being in L's building. The phone rings again and Aiber comes and shoves off of the boy a moment later, planting the cash in his shaking hands and grabbing his cell out of his discarded jacket pocket.

"What?" he asks, too tired for charm and too sure of who it is to feel a need to employ any. The only other person who uses this number is one that Aiber can't quiet get his hopes up enough to wish for.

"Say _'thank you,'_ " Wedy smarms. He can imagine her quirked lips, red and obnoxiously clever, shaping the words around a smirk and white, white teeth. He hates her with whatever's left over from his loathing of Light Yagami and his shiny hair and starched shirts and darling smiles.

The boy is putting his clothes on, bending over to pick them up, shameless and quiet. Aiber watches the arch of his back, decides it's not unhealthily gaunt enough. A thick disgust settles in stomach at having gotten off to such a pathetic copy and he doesn't bother to mask the look on his face when the boy nods at him. He's got smudged mascara and exhaustion on his face, can't be more than 20, is probably doing this just to be able to eat, and Aiber should be kind to him. He isn't.

"What for, pretty lady?" he asks Wedy, holding open the door for his guest with a flourish that prickles with mockery.

"Just say it," Wedy tells him. She's not smoking, he can tell. He imagines it's warm where she is. Wedy hates to smoke in hot weather, says in makes her feel like a sauna. She says a lot of things.

The boy finishes dressing and goes, watching him down the hall. "I really don't like you right now, Wedy," he says.

Even though she probably did the smart thing, the only reasonable thing to be done at this point. She left and Aiber stayed and that should somehow make him nobel and good, but it hasn't led to anything but early morning fucks and a pit that likes to gnaw rabid at the back of his throat. L is gone and a prostitute is leaving Aiber's hotel room, passing someone in the hall who, for a moment, looks suspiciously familiar.

"You'll like me more when you don't die from a heart attack," Wedy says, patient annoyance in her voice.

A moment later and that someone looks even more familiar, stopping in front of Aiber's open doorway and bowing slightly. The coat has been dry-cleaned, all the folds ironed straight and stiff, and for a second or two, the general atmosphere becomes that of a hardboiled detective novel.

"Thank you," Aiber says hurriedly, and snaps the phone shut, stands up a little straighter and covertly checks his bathrobe for stains, bowing back. He should be in a suit, he should be in a suit with a drink in his hand and a smirk on his face and not fucking every odd person who looks slightly like L.

Watari takes off his hat off. "You said you wanted to help?" he asks, voice a stern bend of something low and familiar.

Aiber swallows and nods him inside.

 

\---

 

Sayu eats too fast. Sayu does everything too fast, including talk, and the combination of that with tonight's dinner makes most of her input into the conversation barely intelligible. Their mother has to remind her to chew her food for the third time before her next sentence is fully comprehensible.

"I don't understand why Light's allowed to move out but I'm not," she says, tapping her chopsticks excitedly against the edge of her plate.

"Because," Light says, rolling his eyes good-naturedly, "you're 15."

"So?" she asks, taking another bite and mumbling around it, "I'm very mature for my age."

That makes their mother laugh because habits that make everyone else embarrassed by association are always endearing when the person whom they belong is your darling baby girl. "Chew, Sayu," she corrects agin. Never in Light's entire life has his mother corrected him for anything and it might be a point of pride if it weren't an absolute given. He can't imagine what it might be like to be a person in need of correction.

Sayu, on the other hand, is never without some fault or another. She is young and pretty and charming and so everyone brushes them off, but one day she will grow up and most likely find herself incapable of meeting anyone's expectations. As it is now, no one has any expectations for Sayu; Light has used them all up. He'd feel bad about it if excessive proficiency wasn't something that came as natural as breathing or faking his smiles, but it does, and she gets on well enough besides.

"I was more mature than you are now at 8," he tells her, after fully chewing and swallowing and wiping his mouth lightly with a napkin. His tone is teasing and perfectly inoffensive and she just meets his smile with one of her own.

"You were more mature than Grandpa at 8," she tells him.

"Don't poke fun at your brother, Sayu," their mother says, offering Light more food, which he declines politely.

It's not that this is uncomfortable in and of itself - the situation actually instills him with a calming sense of normalcy - it's just that he doesn't have time for it. There are serial bombings going on in Norway and a sex trafficking scandal in Taiwan and a succession of brutal murders coloring the English countryside that are eerily reminiscent of Jack the Ripper and have the press all in a buzz. Family dinners ought to wait until all the dirt has been cleared away, until the world is shining and new and doesn't corrode more fully with every passing second. Family dinners are for unremarkable people with nothing better to do.

God doesn't need a family to have dinners with.

Though God shouldn't need a girlfriend either, and his phone still buzzes with the fifth call from Misa that day. He presses _ignore_ without a second thought and turns back to his sister.

"I'm just kidding, jeez," she says, swallowing down her rice. "Light knows he's perfect. Anyway, isn't Dad going to come home soon? I know Kira's started up again and everything, but there are more important things, aren't there?" 

She says it so offhandedly and Light stills in his seat. He can feel the world decaying around him.

"More important than justice?" he asks slowly, looking at his plate.

"Yeah," Sayu says, swallowing quickly and smiling brightly and being a thousand things that are all acceptable but in no way enviable, "like family." She sets down her glass and glances at her mother. "And love." She drags the word out, turning it into a joke, a pretty fantasy, stripping it of any meaningful substance.

"Nothing's more important than justice, Sayu," Light tells her. His tone sounds even to his ears and it strikes him as a perfectly natural thing to say, but her eyebrows go up.

"Oookay," Sayu says, lips quirking. "I know _somebody_ who's gonna ace all of his NPA exams and fail all of his relationships."

Light thinks of L and then tries not to, because there's nothing particular about him to be thought of. He talks too much lately and doesn't listen enough, asks unreasonable questions and pokes and prods at Light with his crooked fingers, looking for weak parts. Light is annoyed by his existence and would fantasize graphically about killing - for real this time - if doing so didn't make him feel like his chest had been hollowed out and filled with many-legged insects that crawl around and lay eggs and breed and -

Light remembers not to think of it. He puts it away, shoots a teasing look at Sayu.

"Hmm, that's funny," he says, "because I know someone who's going to fail all of her math exams if her brother stops helping her."

"No way," she more or less squeals. "I'm really good now. Honestly. Mom, tell him!

Their mother smiles placatingly, puts a hand to her daughter's shoulder. She's got tired eyes and Light knows that she wants her husband home. "You're fine, Sayu."

Sayu cocks her head at him. "See, I'm fine."

Light nods, thinks he must be smiling. "I know you are."

People like Sayu will never be anything more than _fine_. And that's fine. But Light is more than that, so much more, and it's his responsibility to take to reins, to fight for justice, to do the things that no one else can. Maybe L could, if he'd try, but L doesn't care. L doesn't care about 12-year-old boys with missing livers and he doesn't care about justice.

L doesn't care about anything.

 

\---

 

L is doing tai chi when the door opens.

Watari had special ordered a martial arts instructor straight out of a rural Chinese prison for him a when he'd been 13. It had been a birthday present. L had become proficient in most of the common forms in under a year. He possesses no particular physical talent beyond the ability to memorize and replicate muscle movement, which is only different from absorbing and retaining any sort information as far its application it concerned, and L has a long and storied history of getting his body to do what he wants it to.

His back is to Light and he slowly moves his arms, shifting his stance, body arching in a way that he's sure must but reasonably appealing. It's a bit difficult to manage with one arm chained to the bed frame, but there's enough give for him to move comfortably, even if his bones crack and his muscles ache with every movement from being in relatively the same position for the last week or so. One hand stretches out, the other following it, and then he hears an unsettlingly high-pitched giggle and freezes.

"Wow, Ryuzaki. You're actually pretty tall."

Misa's hair isn't in pig-tails and L thinks it's maybe the first time he's seen her without them, photographs aside. She's got what is probably meant to be an inconspicuous hat on and is slipping a pair of comically large sunglasses off of her face, looking for all the world how one does when trying to be discreet and not having any guidance beyond what they've seen in movies. She's holding a department store bag in one hand and grinning at him like they're old school friends or something.

"Misa-san," L says, lowering his arms and immediately resuming his slump. He feels strangely caught off guard by the remark, as if the revelation of his true height is the equivalent of being seen naked. Which in truth, would probably have bothered him less.

"I brought you some clothes," Misa says. "And cake." Light isn't with her and if there's an explanation for that, she doesn't offer it. "You really haven't done much with the place, have you?"

The room contains a bed, a small, rickety desk, and one discolored chair. It's cheap furniture, but still too much for Light's lack of income, so L assumes that Misa's paying for his accommodations from her wages as a model. L has had as much to do with the acquisition and decoration of the place as a beetle has to do with the purchase of the boot that stomps on it, and it's not as if Light is in the habit of bringing him _Martha Stewart Living_ in with the morning paper. Unless she expects him to have fashioned curtains out of the clothes off his back, he's not sure what sort of home improvement Misa imagines he could have done.

He doesn't bother pointing any of this out, though, just holds up his arm and says, "Light chained me up."

"You chained him up first," she counters, tossing one of the bags at him.

He doesn't catch it, just watches as it collides rather comically with his abdomen and then drops to the floor. A pair of jeans spills halfway out, along with a few shirts. Did she buy him underwear? Is she the sort of person to buy underwear for her boyfriend's… captive? Is there any sort of person like that in existence?

"Yes," he says, awkwardly. He's not the infamous murderer in the room, but he feels strangely guilty, like he should apologize to her for something. This isn't a new situation for him, not as if none of his suspects have ever had significant others - Aiber is technically married, after all - his work is just too important for him to be kept up at night by something so trivial as infidelity. Maybe it's that he knows Misa, has spent a certain amount of time around her.

Maybe it's just because he can sympathize with her position - so to speak.

"Do you have plates here or - " she sets down the other, smaller bag, looking around the room, eyes stopping on him only briefly before quickly flicking away. "I - you should change. You kind of smell." It would be an insult if she didn't sound so distant, far away from the scene, like she's reading off well-practiced lines.

L looks at her, looks at the bag on the floor, then reaches down and picks it up. He does smell.

Misa coughs quietly. "Are those Light's clothes?" she says without looking at him. They are - Light had said that getting L's own clothes from headquarters would be too risky, had given him some sweatpants and a few t-shirts to borrow. They hang unsettlingly on L, are cut for a different sort of man, one who plays volleyball on beaches in magazine ads. He supposes it must be obvious to Misa how unused to them he is.

"Yeah, he lets me wear his t-shirts sometimes, too," she says, smiling a small, forced smile, full or something that lacks the energy to be loathing, but comes close enough. "I definitely look better in them, but it's okay." She moves closer, almost examining him. "You're alright, I guess. But, I mean, nobody would put you on the cover of a magazine, would they?"

There's a quivering, suppressed sort of agony in her voice and it makes L feel how a person must feel when they feel guilty.

"No," he agrees, "they wouldn't."

She cocks her head, _hmms_ , and then straightens up, pasting her Stepford wife smile back on. "I'll go find plates." She opens the bedroom door and L's half-sure she's going to leave him to sort out getting changed with one of his wrists cuffed, before she calls out down the long hall, "Rem, will you come unchain Ryuzaki and make sure he doesn't run away?"

"I don't think the Shinigami - " L says, given that every time he's tried to get her attention, he's been promptly ignored.

"She'll come," Misa says.

And she does. Which is curious, as is the almost gentle way that she accepts the handcuff key from Misa - who keeps it in her pocket, L notes, storing that away in the place where he keeps all of the information that could possibly help him escape. Misa goes and the Shinigami undoes the lock, wrapping one sludge-like hand around his forearm as a warning, then floats there, blank eyes set on him. He has no space and no privacy but he's had plenty of time to get used to such a situation in the last few months, and changes quickly and fastidiously. He doesn't bother trying to make a run for it, knows he won't get far and rather wants cake besides. He hasn't eaten since yesterday morning and would claim mistreatment if he thought Misa would care all that much.

He can hear her knocking things around and cursing through the thin walls, breathy, overexcited squeals filling the quiet apartment. It must be a full apartment, if Misa's gone to look for plates. L hasn't been out of this room and the hall and had known better than to ask Light.

If he's honest, he almost resigned to his situation - if only for the moment. Being held hostage is not ideal, of course, but there's a dusty, disused, truthful corner of his mind that admits that he's almost grateful that his autonomy has been temporality taken away, because the paralyzing monstrosity of the things left behind, the things he has to deal with, are no longer bearing down on him. He is free from the necessity of apprehending Kira, free from the law's petty demands and the public's scrutinous eye.

Light, of course, still brings him the newspaper. He even circles articles that criticize L's investigation for easy reading.

"Shinigami Rem," L says, after he finishes dressing - blue jeans, grey shirt; the closest thing to white that he'd found in the bag - "would you be opposed to answering some questions I have about the Death Note?"

Rem slumps aggressively at him. "He won't like that," she says.

L is a genius but extreme intelligence is unnecessary to understand who _he_ is.

"No," L says, giving her a quiet smile, "I don't imagine he will."

She looks at him for a long time, as if he's a television program and there is no expectation for her to respond to his words. Before she gives any indication of her answer, whether negative or positive, Misa's back, with napkins instead of plates, because apparently Light hasn't been expecting any dinner parties. Misa mumbles something quietly to Rem, standing uncomfortably close, and L wonders whether Shinigami possess enough emotion to be able to care for humans. The look on Rem's face before she nods softly and floats out through the wall says _yes_.

The cake is good, though not excellent, and Misa pulls the invalid of a chair up to L's bed, resting her high-heeled boots across the sheets, like a child who cares very little either way about impropriety. Misa has some cake, too, and L doesn't remark at the change, just listens to her rattle off several disconnected, uninteresting facts about her day and where she bought his clothes and how he looks way better in jeans that fit, but still not very good, and does he like it here and have he and Light been getting along and, oh, have they been having a lot of sex?

"Misa-san," L says, not a protest or a defense, but a warning. He really isn't interested in performing a soap-opera scene with her over Light, especially since, as far as he's concerned, she is welcome to him at this point.

Her smile is jagged and bubblegum bright and there's a smart determination in her eyes. "What, I'm just asking," she says. "A girl wonders, you know?"

L sets his fork down and sits up straighter, shrugging off the role with just a shift in stance. "What are you hoping to gain through this exactly?" he asks. "If you're unsatisfied by your relationship with Light, you ought to bring it up with him. If you're simply looking to feed some masochistic urge through extensive consideration of your boyfriend's infidelity, perhaps you - "

"I'm not masochistic," Misa snaps, standing quickly and turning away. She crosses her arms and moves as if she wants to pace, but the room is too small for her to really have anywhere to go.

"Oh, yes," L almost snorts, "neither am I. And Light Yagami is an innocent. And Kira is justice." He shovels in a bit more cake, imagines he can feel the glucose molecules igniting something neglected in his mind. "I can see your common interest, at least. You both live on lies."

"And you don't?"

Her frankness is overshadowed by the breathy indignation she adds to the words, squealing them out like a piece of performance art. She is a performer in all things.

"Of course I do," L says, not looking at her in order to make her look at him. "I'm just the same as him." The startling reality is that it's not true - they are different in more ways than they are similar - but it is a formidable lie and one that all parties involved have signed on to believe, and so he treats it as fact, the same way you would in a game or play.

Misa seems to believe it. She crosses her arms again. Behind her, L can see the Shinigami's head poking partway through the wall, a grisly sight, only made less so by the somewhat uninterested look on the thing's face. It must have heard them. Maybe it has super-hearing. Maybe they're just being loud.

"Maybe," L says, mostly because he wants to test the reactions, "you should fall wretchedly in love with me, in that case."

Misa barely reacts, like there are some things that her mind filters as jokes by definition. "Ew," she says, but it's halfhearted and far away, and the bulk of her attention seems to be fixed on the bathroom counter, visible from certain angles, where a bottle of aftershave sits. Even if Misa doesn't recognize it, It doesn't require particularly advanced deduction to come to the conclusion that it doesn't belong to L.

"You know, I could kill you anytime I wanted," she says, after a moment.

L blinks. The Shinigami has slunk back out of the room, leaving the wall blank and dull and white.

"I figured as much," he says. She is the Second Kira and the Second Kira can get your name just by looking at your face, and here she is and here's his face. The moment she'd walked in the door, he'd resigned himself to it. His current circumstances are of the sort that necessitate a certain degree of resignation. Fear gone, all that's left is simple curiosity. "How do you learn it?" he asks. "Do you see it, or does it just come to you?"

"I see it," she says, standing beside her chair like she can't decide whether she wants to sit back down or not. "Floating there. L Lawliet." She lifts up a hand, and doesn't quite point and doesn't quite touch, but gives the impression that she might be liable to do either at any moment. 

She drops her hand, but the threat is there.

"I'm not going to, though," she says after a moment. "I could, but I'm not going to. I'm not stupid." She says it with such quiet force, like she's making a point, though not one intended specifically for L. "I understand more than he thinks I understand. I understand what I am."

She looks down at her hands and, though faded and hard to see at first glance, L can now tell that her fingers are covered in ink splotches.

He nods, isn't sure what he's nodding to. After a time, Misa sits down and picks at her cake some more.

 

\---

 

Light goes to a guest lecture. He doesn't have the time, doesn't have any particular interest in the subject being discussed, but it's expected of him, so he goes. Light is the sort of person who goes to guest lectures, and other people go to guest lectures to impress people like him. That's just how the world, and academia - a fairly accurate microcosm of the full scope of modern society - works. His seat is uncomfortable and the people behind him won't stop whispering and the lecture hall smells like undried paint and he's, in general, looking forward to a very dull hour - and then the lecturer walks in and everything suddenly gets terribly interesting.

He looks like L, is Light's first thought, because Light has become a horrible shell of a person who typically only has two basic subjects of constant consideration, and one of them is L. The other is the nature of justice in a world riddled with seething, overhanging rot and the death of common morality. But mostly L.

Lately Light has spent more and more time preoccupied by the many and various ways in which he is patently pathetic and ethically abhorrent, and how there is nothing attractive about him at all, even when he's tied to a bed. In fact, it seems obvious that the entirety of Light's fascination with him had undoubtably sprung from a desire to conquer him, and now that L has been defeated and stripped of all agency, there is nothing at all appealing about his body, or his mind, or the way his fingers tap slow, thick rhythms in the heavy dark or -

There is nothing worth anything in L, no currency and no greatness that is more than greatness. He exists to be great, but in such an ugly way that it almost cancels itself out. Nothing great is great without being beautiful. Light is beautiful and L is ugly and these are where the lines fall. Light is only keeping him around out of some mix of charity and necessity. The necessary things are all ugly, never great.

But the man at the front of the hall is very good-looking. He's tall, he's got creases in his suit. Light likes him on sight. Light sees him and it's like how L would be if L were better, more worthy of Light.

The man clears his throat and speaks with tremulous conviction about law. His hair falls in his eyes, he wears glasses, looks like L in glasses and a suit which makes Light imagine L in glasses and a suit which is, altogether, a very different picture. Slumped and susceptible and uncaring and chained to things, always chained to things. Even in a suit L would be ugly, because L's existence is one that is dependent on both a stillness and a penchant for destruction.

The man in the suit who looks like L but not really like L could not destroy anything. He is not great, Light thinks. He is good.

Teru Mikami speaks and Light watches with a curious, loathsome wonder.

 

\---

 

He skulks Borough Market in the mornings. Skulks because everyone looks at him like he's skulking and he sort of settles into it through lack of any other recourse. Afternoons he runs errands. There's a private investigator downtown - an overlarge, smushed woman with a hairlip who calls him _love_ and pats his ass sometimes - who can't be bothered to hire an assistant for proper pay, so she sends out anyone in need of a little extra cash on freelance jobs sometimes. Mello's in need of a lot of cash, but he needs a roof over his head and food to eat first and foremost, and working for Missy takes care of that.

It's on his fourth job for her that he gets caught. Business relations, Missy had called it, which - from the ridiculous clothes and heavy voices - Mello assumes means _gang stuff_.

He thinks he can do it, even though she tells him it's dangerous. He's still convinced he can do it, even when he's backed into a wall with a gun to his head. They tell him to beg for his life, but he doesn't. He begs for a job instead.

The meeting place the one man gives him - not the one with the gun, the other one, the one that smiles too much even though he has chipped teeth and picks at the undersides of his fingernails - is a fairly deserted street at a fairly deserted time of day, and then into the back room of coffee shop for a little bit of extra desertion. There are two men there, one of them from before - the smiling man - and another that Mello doesn't recognize who speaks with a thick northern accent.

He's sitting in a chair, legs sprawled aggressively apart. Mello hates the look on his face.

"No way," he says, shaking his head at Mello and spitting slightly when he speaks. He's chewing something that could be tobacco and could be bubblegum. "He's barely out of his nappies. We're not having a 12-year-old running for us."

"I'm 15," Mello says stoically, standing up straighter and trying to resist the urge to stomp his feet and _demand_ that they give him what he wants. He needs the money. He _needs_ it.

"Pipe down," the smiling man says, though not cruelly, and turns to his compatriot. "He's 15, see? And a pretty thing. Looks like a rich kid, or would without all that dirt on his face. No one would suspect. No one would think he could do the job."

The other man snorts. "That's cause he can't."

Mello thinks he probably shouldn't interrupt, but then he rarely should in any situation, and hardly ever listens to his better instincts. "I can," he insists, choking back his frustration. "I'll prove it. I'll do anything."

"Will you suck my cock?" the man in the chair asks, leering face split with a grin much crueler than the other man's quiet smile.

"No," Mello practically spits, unable to cover up his instinctive revulsion, even though it's weakness, weakness, _weakness_. Matt would probably laugh at him. Not for being weak, but for caring that he is, and for being in this situation in the first place. Matt would never be in this situation; Mat doesn't care about anything.

"Well then, he's not very committed to the job, is he?" the man says, grin splitting wider. The other one doesn't return his smile and doesn't particularly seem to like this whole business that sounds suspiciously like prostitution. Mello will do a lot, but he won't - he won't - he probably won't.

But desperate times.

"What has your cock got to do with the job, exactly?" he asks, shifting his stance, moving a hand to his hip. Trying to make it seem like _cock_ is a word that he says all the time.

"How well you'd like to know, little pretty," the man says, leaning forward so far in his chair that Mello's prepared to make a run for it if it comes to it. Hopes to God it doesn't come to it. He must flinch or something, because the man tosses his head back, laughing like he's just said something show-stoppingly funny. Mello tries not to grimace.

"You ever shot someone before?" the other man asks, still floating in his general good humor. Like this is all some casual sort of business.

"Yeah," Mello says, not saying the word with half as much conviction as he should.

_Conviction is key_ , L had told him once. He had been nine and it had been snowing out, Wammys's lake frozen over with thick, grey ice.

"Lying little shit," the man in the chair barks, appearing to enjoy this far more than if Mello had told the truth.

"I could," he says, crossing his arms, "just give me a gun."

There's a rickety ceiling fan in the room and, although it's too cold to be necessary, is shifts a little bit with ever creak of the building. It sounds like someone's doing a tap show on the floor above them. Mello crosses his arms tighter.

"Yeah, right," the man says, lips quirking nastily around what Mello is pretty sure is tobacco, "we give a gun to every toddler that asks for one. Real cunning strategy, that." He sighs, stands. Mello's pretty sure this man wouldn't know a cunning strategy if it walked up to him and shook him by his thick, meaty hand. "If you're not fucking off, then we'll bring you to the boss, I suppose. See how he likes the look of you." He opens the door and his eye twinkles with something that crawls across Mello's skin. "You can suck his cock, too."

The other man snorts, almost delicately. "Leave off with all of this about cocks, will you? Christ." He motions for Mello to follow and heads out the door, too, back into the slowly filling street.

Mello follows.

 

\---

 

Mikami sorts his lecture notes slowly, precisely, as if he knows each and every sheet of paper by touch and cannot abide the thought of a single word being out of order. All the corners line up, all of his pens are parallel, and the creases in his suit look as if they were stylistically designed that way. He looks more like a portrait of a man than a man and Light wants him to stand very still so that he can touch his skin, trace the curves of his bones and see how he can measure up to L.

Light's struck by the sudden idea - delirious and freeing for a moment - that it's not L that he's infatuated with, but infatuation itself. The clawing need for another person that can almost match his clawing need for the Death Note, for his new world. Maybe L is easily replaceable - unnecessary - and all of this trouble can be avoided.

Takada passes him as she leaves the room and says something soft and self-satisfied that Light nods to and ignores in the same breath, shifting seamlessly through the crowd and to the front of the room. He waits there as the last students straggle out, watching the room fill up with empty space and the strings of Mikami's hair drop in front of his eyes, making him frown and toss them back. Up close he's even more solemn, with a passive sort of gravity that is very easy to ignore. Light wants to touch him under his clothes and he wonders if that's normal.

He clears his throat softly, bowing, and Mikami freezes, two or three sheets of paper sliding out of order with the way he jerks slightly, steady movements shattering into a disorganized muddle for a single second, before he bows back.

"Yes?" His voice is cold and self-conscious and, it strikes Light then, really nothing like L's, who is admittedly the apex around which this whole experiment revolves. A sort of compare and contrast. After all, he doesn't want to be like one of those twenty-somethings who marry their high school sweethearts, never knowing if they've even touched the real thing or are just playing at it.

"Excuse me, Mikami-san," he says, smiling in a way that he knows from experience to be exceedingly charming, "I don't mean to bother you. I can come back some other time, if this is inconvenient."

"No, no," Mikami says, seemingly unable to decide between gathering up the lost documents or shaking his head and settling for a staunchly awkward mixture of the two. "Please - " He gestures to the desk, realizes there isn't a chair on the side that Light is standing and lets his hand drop. He is obviously uncomfortable, but so stolid and immovable that the fact of it doesn't seem belittling so much as it does overwhelming.

This is a man who is committed to being uncomfortable and maintains his state as such with a determined tenacity. Light can't decide if he finds him admirable or pathetic.

He inclines his head, makes himself look boyish and unassuming, the way he would glance at L across the desk in the main room, back before. Eyelashes brushing his cheeks and voice softer than it needs to be, he says, "I really liked what you said about morality today." Light isn't actually sure what Mikami had talked about specifically - ethics and that, mostly, though not in a particularly engaging way. "It's something most people don't give enough thought to."

Mikami is idly lining up his pens again. "It's my job," he says.

"Of course," Light says, nodding, but he lets an extra layer of something settle in his voice, wonders if Mikami will pick up on it, knows L would.

L would have already pinned him to the desk.

"Is there - " Mikami starts, and it sounds like an end to the conversation, so Light doesn't let it get that far, isn't done yet.

"That's a nice suit," he says, taking a step closer, arching his body so that Mikami has lean back a bit if he wants to keep his breathing room. He starts to say something but the words puff out softly as hot air and Light thinks no, this is nothing like what L is like, not really, and even if there's a low thrill, it is somewhat empty. L is made of sense-memory, of cool glances and warm fingers and late nights, and there is something to be said for familiarity. L occupies a spot in him because he has dug it out for himself, through proximity and obsession and abuse of power.

Teru Mikami is a nobody in a suit.

Teru Mikami is someone that Light silently and fervently wishes that he could get to like.

He freezes, then his stance shifts, going colder still, and he pushes his glasses up his nose and asks, in as uninvested a voice as possible, "Is this a joke?"

Light's pleasant expression withers a little on his face. "Excuse me?"

"Is this a joke?" Mikami repeats, slowly, as if speaking to a child with some kind of learning disorder. "Are you making fun of me?"

He says it matter-of-factly, as if this is a thing to be expected, which doesn't match up at all with his appearance. L is the sort of person, strange and socially incapable that he is, that Light would expect to be defensive, always expecting the attack, instead of brazen and confidently uncaring the way he is in reality. Mikami, on the other hand, is attractive in a way that is obvious at first glance, that doesn't take weeks and words and close contact to understand.

Maybe he used to have terrible acne, Light thinks, but doesn't really understand. Mikami is strange, though - and whether it's a taste acquired through L or not, Light likes him the more for it.

"No," he says, not really knowing how to continue from there, but making it understood with one word that he is not that type, not the sort to bully or make fun or waste his time on the humiliation of every odd, inconsequential person. "I - no."

Mikami pauses, looks at him with a strange, calculating look that Light can't decide whether he likes or not, and then nods. "I see."

He starts lining up his papers again, all in a row, everything neat and perfect and Light doesn't like that he looks like he's going to walk away. People do not walk away from Light, they follow him. So, he smiles and uses the line that always works when he needs it to, with a cool, appreciative tilt to his voice.

"You should come to lunch with me," he says. "Tomorrow." It's not a question, not even really a suggestion. Teru Mikami is coming to lunch with him tomorrow and that is a fact.

Mikami seems caught off guard by this news and looks down at his hands, at his neat, neat papers, and then back up at Light. He looks cornered and confused and a little too tall for his own body, but he nods. He nods and says, "Alright."

Of course he does.

 

\---

 

Mello mostly runs errands for his new employers, too. And when they say _errands_ , what they means is _drugs_. Mello doesn't care and doesn't ask questions and they pay him enough not to need to. He doesn't have to do this for long, just needs enough for a flight to Japan and a little extra to keep himself fed and watered, and then he can start.

He'll find L, he knows. He can feel it, the way he sometimes feels things - and not things like Matt's boner digging into his side when they fall asleep next to each other in the old observatory, cool winter air slipping in around the plastered up hole in the ceiling - but in a gnawing gut sort of way. L doesn't come around much but Mello doesn't need him to, will go to him instead. It's much better this way. Wammy's is too crowded and L doesn't like crowds, at least that's the excuse that Roger gives when L stops by but doesn't come out of his room for the duration.

He doesn't like crowds. He's busy. International security rests on his shoulders. No, you can't eat his chocolate cake.

L's appearance at Wammy's had always been accompanied by a lot of rules, the most important of which is known to every student, from the tiniest toddlers upwards: don't disturb him.

Mello had always disturbed him. He'd wanted to _know_ him, still does. He's going to. He's going to find L and he's going to help him and L is going to _see_ , going to understand that Mello is the one, was always the one who deserves it the most. He doesn't care what he has to do.

He doesn't care that there are shadows haunting his path, that if he turns around quickly on the London streets he can almost spot someone dodging out of sight, someone long and strangely familiar, someone Mello pretends he doesn't see, because he knows that it's just psychological. Of course he's going to see L out of the corner of his eye if L is all he thinks about constantly. It's basic psychology.

"Hurry up, kiddie," Bert calls, spitting over his shoulder as Mello slips in through the back door, to the little room where the ceiling fan creaks above them in the cool air and they always wait for the drop-off.

Bert is a complete sleaze and Mello would have him arrested on principal if he could afford it. Watson, the other one, he's alright. He smiles too much and never sits down and wears a jacket two sizes too big for him, but he's alright. For a criminal, at least. He never paws at Mello or talks about his cock, always nods and conducts business efficiently, always makes good-humored jokes to lighten the mood if he can.

Bert catcalls Mello as he leaves and it almost sounds like the row of rubbish bins to his left is laughing in agreement.

The shadows shift. Mello rolls his eyes, tugs his coat on tighter and heads out for another round through the city.

 

\---

 

Teru Mikami looks extremely uncomfortable.

Light watches him from across the street and in through the cafe window. He keeps tugging at his collar and playing with the ends of his sleeves. He thinks that Light isn't going to come. Light loves proving people wrong.

He hasn't been back to see L in days, though he's sent Misa twice. Maybe he should kill the both of them. Maybe he should make Teru Mikami fall in love with him - easy - and then go from there. L is just a decoration from a past life, something he'd brought along with him out of apprehension for the future - he can admit as much now. Light had been terrified of the idea that no one could ever matter as much as him, be as integral to his day-to-day existence, but Light has barely seen him lately, and he doesn't miss him.

The world is so large and there are so many things to own. L, as something he already has complete ownership of, is no longer interesting.

And Misa never has been. She'd practically blackmailed him into dating her. It's reasonable justice that he should punish her for that crime. She'd tried to leash a God, just like L. They're both scum.

Teru Mikami is clean and crisp. Light had looked him up on every database - L's computer has access to them all, and though Watari eyes him suspiciously, he never stops Light using them - and he's never done so much as miss a day of school. His record is perfect and his suit is neat and his self-conscious sobriety as he sits waiting for Light at the table, absently playing with his phone, is a welcome change from L's self-assured impudence.

Light moves to cross the street. One of Tokyo's billboard televisions shifts into another news story, and he watches it flash out of the corner of his eye and stops.

_Breaking News._

He stops, stares at the screen and the boy smiling up at him from it. Feels a bit sick.

_Takashi Sato. Age 11. Found dead at 9 o'clock this morning. Corpse mutilated, liver cut out. Sexual assault suspected._

Light feels very sick.

He's stopped somewhat in the street and moves off to the sidewalk, right up to the window of the cafe. He barely notices. Teru Mikami sees him and his brow furrows and he almost raises a hand before thinking better of it, and Light barely notices.

_Possible connection to another recent case. Police had been closing in on a suspect who died in custody. Heart-attack. Kira strongly suspected._

Light feels very sick. He looks through the window, sees Mikami there - a one-time lecturer at a college; nothing, no one; doesn't even have that nice of a suit - and doesn't understand what he's doing. He doesn't understand. He briefly meets Mikami's eyes and then walks away, checking his phone for the current train schedule.

 

\---

 

It's not Misa again, L can tell from the footfalls, from the uneven way the key is twisted in the lock and the door is shoved open. Light stands in the doorway and Light looks like he's aged quite a bit in the last several weeks, like the jump between innocence and murder has altered more than just his mind - like Jekyll and Hyde, changing outside as well as within. L wonders whether Kira is the ugly part, or the shining, golden thing that he pretends to be. L hopes for the latter. L hopes that he is pretty and good in some ways that make it make sense for L to feel the way he does to look at him, to see him standing there in a sweat of quiet rage.

He is a meaningless person, really, one to be piled in with all of the others, but L has still stopped trying to escape, and L still freezes and shakes through the back of his throat when Light walks forward - doesn't even close the door, just comes and kneels by the side of the bed and grabs one of L's legs - now clad in a pair of somewhat restricting jeans, courtesy of Misa's enthusiastic shopping excursion - and presses his face, somewhat awkwardly and certainly unexpectedly intimately, to the inside of L's thigh.

It's not very sexual, though L wishes it was, because there is not much else to do when chained to a bed and he also rather wants an excuse to take these wretched jeans off, but it's almost like Light isn't fully aware of what he's doing, of the fact that he's wrapping himself around L's leg, like a child clinging to its mother's skirts. He breathes in and his breath puffs lightly against L's hip and makes him rather want a blowjob and also to grab Light by the hand - like a child, still - and take him out of the Japan and take him away, very far away.

Like some kind of shitty romance film.

Light's face is pressed almost to his crotch and L feels like a shitty romance film, and he feels tired and at once very awake.

"Sometimes," Light murmurs, and L thinks he's going to quote his winning line back at him again, the way he so loves to do - but he doesn't. "Sometimes I can't tell if I'm God or you are."

He breathes it out the way you'd breathe some daunting love confession, like he knows it's a perfectly unreasonable thing to say, but he's committed to having it said, anyway.

L sighs fondly at him and remembers, the way he has a habit of doing, that swelling, overtaking, wipe-out feeling of _this is someone he does not want to leave_. "The fact that you need someone in the relationship to be a deity says a lot more than it doesn't, Light."

Light doesn't smile but his expression shifts and L can feel it against his leg. Then he's sitting up, adjusting his position to reach into his jacket pocket and pull out his phone - and he doesn't usually bring is phone into the room, L knows, because he usually searches Light's pockets when he falls asleep here - and types something in. He turns the screen to L and it only takes a moment for it all to settle into a subdued understanding.

The story can't be out in newspaper yet, not so soon, but it's there on the front page of the Tokyo's top news website. _Takashi Sato_. L would be shocked and appalled if he were someone else or trying to make Light think that he's someone else, but he's neither of those things and has surrounded himself with this sort of ugliness since childhood. Murder, rape, dismemberment - it's no shock, no new idea. Not like spontaneous combustion - now that's a real fun case, the kind that B would have taken if B had ever made it far enough to have cases.

L wonders what B is doing now, wonders if he'd find this case - child murderer, likely serial killer; nothing confirmed; two is a line, not a pattern - boring, or just be jealous that he hadn't gotten to commit the crime first.

Then L remembers why he hates thinking about B.

"Another one's dead," Light says, still down on his knees, but appearing not to notice. "Same way. Same killer, surely."

L runs his fingers down the slope of Light's arm, not quite touching, just tracing. Some things break if you touch them, and some things poison you on contact. Most things are just things and they don't do anything in particular, but Light is never _just_ anything.

"It could always be a copy-cat," L says, facetiously, because it's the first thing an idiot police officer would say and just because both L and Light are brilliant doesn't mean that they'd be more effective alone, just the two of them. People like Touta Matsuda are necessary for a reason.

Crimes are born out of humanity and genius has nothing to do with humanity; idiocy has everything.

Light scoffs. "Don't patronize me," he says. He flicks his hair out of his eyes. He looks very nice in a blazer and some flattering variety of collared shirt that L knows nothing about. He's dressed up, it's easy to see. He's harried, too, like a nervous prom date sure that the girl he bought the corsage for is going to stand him up. "I hate you," he says, leaning closer. He's still got his phone clutched in his hand and L could make a grab for it, knock Light out with a few well-placed blows and call Watari. It's not just an idle fantasy. He could do it easily.

Light's so close and L uses his free hand to grab him by the jaw, so roughly that Light bucks in his grasp, throwing him off only for a moment before they kiss. It's not very pleasurable at first, feels rather like a battering ram to the face and a poorly maneuvered one at that, but there's something about his hand on Light's face, curling up into his hair, and Light fingers digging into his thighs, pushing up to crawl from between his legs to halfway in his lap, pushing close with an unintelligible force of feeling, of hands and fingers and eyes and lips.

"You're ugly," Light says when he pulls back, but it's a flaccid insult, sounds more like a compliment the way he breathes it against L's lips with a desperate sort of look in his eye. "You're nothing."

L kisses him again. Light kisses back and it feels like a violent hello, a _hi, how have you been lately?_ Only with teeth and tongue and uncomfortable throat noises.

When they pull apart, the phone is on the ground and L watches it for a long moment, not so much deliberating as confronting himself with the fact that he has chosen not to make his escape, despite the opportunity. He wallows in the failure, agonizes over it until it becomes part of him, and the lets it seep in. It's easy to let things be the way they are, for a while - hanging in the balance. Light was supposed to die, or else L was, but at this point nobody has died. It's not prevented, just pushed off, but it gives him time and time is what they need.

Just a bit more time.

"Misa told you, of course," L says, because he wants to get it out of the way. He doesn't want to sit through half an hour of Light's Machiavellian spiel sometime later, so he's bringing it up first. From the way he asks the question, he's sure it's obvious what he means.

"Your name?" Light says, something that's not a smile, but could be, twisting on his face. "Of course." He strokes down the side of L's neck, a gesture that's more grasping than it is possessive, as if Light means to be, but can't quite get a handle on it. " _L Lawliet._ "

L's not sure what he'd been expecting - time stopping, darkness encroaching, climactic music - but none of that happens. Light says his name - pronounces it pretty poorly, too - and that is it. L's name has been said to him, out loud and in full, for the first time in coming on seven years. It should feel important, but it doesn't. It's just some words. They have the power to kill him, _Light_ has the power to kill him, sure - but they don't really mean anything. Light has had the power to kill him for weeks now, and hasn't. L doesn't expect him to start trying now.

Light seems to have noticed the generally underwhelming feel of the moment, because he laughs slightly and says, "Your first name is one letter. That's unbelievably stupid."

L tips back, half against the headboard, and pulls one of his feet up next to him on the bed. "I'm not going to get into an argument about ridiculous names with you of all people." The tips of his fingers play with Light's hair. "Now can you go get me something to eat? I've been wasting away all day."

Light pauses, then nods.

 

\---

 

They come at night. Misa's seen enough films to know that this is how it goes: they always come at night.

She hears the echoes, the thumps on the doors, the quiet whispers, and she doesn't even think, just gets down on the floor and crawls under the bed - just like last time. She remembers the scratchy carpeting on her cheek and how it had chafed when she'd cried, making her face red and blotchy and ugly, nobody's pretty princess anymore. It feels sort of surreal to be back here again, but also rather inevitable. Cornered in an alley or shaking and hidden in her bedroom, it's all more or less the same, every time.

They always come at night.

The voices are quiet and footsteps shake through the floor and she's frozen, she can't move, and where are her pages? The pages she kept, they're somewhere in her purse, and if she could just get them, or her phone, call someone, _call Light_ \- 

Light will fix it. Light will make everything okay again.

She reaches out, small fingers grasping towards the nightstand - it's too dark to see properly, why do they have to come at night? - but then the footsteps are louder and the door cracks open.

There are too many of them and she wishes Rem were with her still and their faces are covered - they _know_ \- and she'd even take Ryuk at this point but she'd sent him off and _why are they here?_ What do they want? She hasn't done anything, she never does anything wrong, but they alway come and take things.

"A black notebook," one of them says to the others, who's pawing through Misa's underwear drawer, "that's all we're looking for." His voice is muffled by the mask. Another one speaks, says something Misa can't hear in a woman's voice, and they're touching everything, knocking things over - that's her Miss Teen Idol 2003 award, that's her favorite corset.

She stays quiet, so quiet, doesn't move or breathe or think, just waits -

And then they're gone, but she still stays under the bed. Just lies there, hand over her mouth, trying to keep still until morning, and consoles herself with the knowledge that Light will make everything okay.

 

\---

**tbc.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've actually been to Borough Market and it's highly perfect. Sorry about the slowness. Sorry about the scarcity of LxLight this chapter. Sorry for the completely extraneous Mikami. Sorry the quality of writing was honestly very suspect. I don't' know what was wrong with me when I wrote this. Thanks for reading/reviewing/etc. and thanks for all being very wonderful in general.
> 
> Oh, and a line from this fic made it onto [wtffanfiction](http://wtffanfiction.com/post/48028602832/fandom-death-note-l-could-blow-the-entire-task). I was very proud. And my really unfoundedly kind and talented friends made [a mix](http://agothicletterl.tumblr.com/post/47610749549/in-the-land-of-gods-and-monsters-a-collaborative) for this fic. Thank you again.


	11. the saints go marching

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! this chapter's a little bit late, because I'm a bit of a late person. I want to start out with a big, sweeping, overly-excited THANK YOU to everyone who came out of the woodwork and reviewed last chapter and, especially, those of you who review every chapter or, at least, every chapter you can manage. I appreciate it so much you've got no real idea. The fact that anyone (besides me) cares about this story is continuously astounding to me. *cough, cough, subtle hint to keep reviewing if you get a chance, cough* but, thank you for reading, either way. thank you for everything.

_"So man's insanity is heaven's sense."_  
\- Herman Melville, _Moby Dick: or, the White Whale_

 

\---

 

Light dreams he is a child. He is a child and L is there, only L is the same age as he always is, must have always been - and even though they prickle in the back of his mind, Light doesn't examine the slightly pedophiliac implications therein - he just walks through halls and doorways and is a child and knows that L is with him and that everything is solved. He dreams of the Tokyo zoo, of going there as a boy with Sayu, except he's not there with Sayu, just watching himself there with Sayu, the way you sometimes do in dreams. Their parents aren't with them but it doesn't feel like it matters. There's nobody there, not even the animals. The cages are all empty. Then Sayu is gone and so is he and the world is wiped clear, crisp and clean and untouched; pure like Eden, like before the fall.

He dreams that Kaito Hidaka has come back to life and is sitting next to him in a hospital waiting room making awkward conversation that Light tries to ignore. He's visiting his father in the hospital, and then it's L, and then it's Ryuk, and the pieces of the world - the shapes making up his perception of existence - all sort of slide together and they all feel very indistinguishable from each other, like it could be L or his father or Ryuk and it doesn't matter which. Light sinks right into the cheap plastic hospital chair and then he is Kaito Hidaka and he's the little boy's dead body - liver cut out; _genetic material found at the scene_ ; semen, that means semen, semen in a little boy - and he is L, too, and L is Kaito Hidaka and nothing is anything, and none of it actually matters, does it?

Something hits him in the foot. He wakes with a start.

He sees the whites of L's eyes, flicking around like those of a cornered animal in the dark space between their bodies. He'd been asleep, too, Light realizes, and feels vaguely pleased. He shifts, wants to groan but doesn't. His thighs ache from what he'd let L do to him.

"Who wants to hear a terrifying story?"

Light's brain twists up on itself trying to rationalize the voice with the body beside him, then tenses as he realizes the situation and turns to face Misa, who's standing by the foot of the bed and digging through her purse, which is balanced on the blankets over Light's feet. He thinks there's a skull and cross bones keychain digging into his ankle.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, voice taut and thirsty. L hasn't even moved, playing dead the way animals do to avoid predators. "How did you get in? You don't even have your own key."

Misa waves her hand, batting aside the undertones of _get the fuck out_ , and nodding back at the door where a greying mound of hip muscle is disappearing through the wall. "Rem let me in."

"Rem doesn't have a key either," Light says, with unbearable, early-morning idiocy.

L snorts into his pillow. Misa ignores them both.

"Someone broke into our apartment last night," she says, phrasing it that way even though Light's barely been there long enough to get a decent look at the place, and wouldn't properly consider it _his_ even if he had.

"What," Light says, without raising his voice so it's not a proper question. He uses L's shoulder as leverage to push himself into a reasonable sitting position and then tries to aim a cool glare at Misa, but thinks it's probably thrown off by the way he has to blink the glare from the desk lamp out of his eyes. He thinks of his dreams and is hit with an unidentifiable feeling, a gutting nostalgia - like maybe he's recovered some repressed childhood memory without really remembering it at all - and the sensation seeps into him and then fades as soon as he tries to think on it, flicking out like it was never there in the first place.

He thinks of L beside him, thinks that this situation would be ideal if Misa weren't standing at the foot of the bed, digging through her purse and chewing her black nail polish into little chips that fall and dirty the crisp white of the bedspread. Her make-up is perfectly even, farce touched up into a pale mask, but Light can see that she's been crying in the corners of her eyes and measures her worth, or lack thereof, by how little he cares.

"Someone broke into our apartment," she repeats, finally reaching whatever she'd been digging through her ridiculously oversized bag for and pulls out several folded sheets of paper, waving them around like some kind of badge of honor. "Or a bunch of people, I don't know, but oh my god, I am _freaking out_. I feel totally sick."

Light processes her words and vaguely wonders if their TV was stolen. Do they even have a TV?

"Have an aspirin," he says, lying back down. L is still in the same position, playing at sleep. He's even regulated his breathing and it puffs steadily against Light's face, tickles.

"They were looking for the Death Note," Misa says, abruptly, in a way that no one should say that sort of thing.

Light is up again in a second. "They were what?"

Misa's staring at him like a dog who expects a smack with the newspaper, and Light has half a mind to give her one. "They were talking about a black notebook," she says. "I mean, they didn't find anything - "

She wrings her hands and when Light realizes what she's holding, he leans over and snatches the loose pages of the Death Note out of them, counting them off. Six pages, he'd told her to take out six, and they're all here; two of them written on in Misa's hasty little gel-pen scrawl, the rest bare. He counts them again, just to make sure, just to comfort himself, then nods, handing them back. She takes them slowly, hands almost shaking, and she's scared, he realizes, with a mild sort of disdain.

He moves fully off the bed, hears a clang and feels a weight following him, but ignores it, taking her hands in his, grip far tighter than the boys in the dramas on TV hold their girls. He can feel her shaking in his fingers, like the wing of a bird.

"You're sure, Misa?" he says, watches her wide eyes get wider, watches her try to play it all off, wishes he had never met her. Her usefulness is not worth her upkeep. "You understand what we're doing here, right? You understand the risks?"

She nods, biting her lip. It's bright red and looks like plastic. He wonders what it would be like to kiss her, to fuck her. He feels a heavy pull on his wrist, knows that L is trying to tug him back for some reason, and only realizes - slowly, and without full consciousness of the process - that they are chained together. That L isn't chained to the bed, he's chained to Light.

To make the sex easier, he remembers. Just like old times.

"Yeah," Misa says, after a moment. The chain jingles again. Light ignores it.

"So you understand," he says, leaning so close he thinks that Misa must feel his breath on her face, must be enjoying it, "that if anyone found the Death Note, we'd both be executed, right?"

"She might actually be allowed to live out her days in solitary confinement," L puts in from his place on the bed, voice muffled in the sheets. He sounds like someone who's talking to a television program.

"Shut-up, L," Light says, without turning around.

L moves so that his voice comes more clearly, but no less obnoxiously - and Light really doesn't have time for this right now - "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed."

Misa's fingernails are digging sharply into Light's palms and he lets them for a few moments before detaching her easily. She's jealous, of course, and can't do a thing about the situation, and it would be slightly gratifying to him - seeing how she more or less forced him into being her boyfriend - if it wasn't so annoying. He grits his teeth, runs a hand through his hair. He'd pace if he wouldn't have to take L halfway around the room with him. Fuck, where's the key? It had been in his pocket but his slacks are strewn somewhere on the floor, and - priorities. Right.

He has to sort this out first.

"Who were they?" he asks Misa, while leaning down to pick up his discarded pants.

She's got her arms crossed, bag clutched to her chest like a designer shield. "I don't know," she says, looking at the mess of clothes with a wrinkle of her nose that's Light's sure is mostly faked for show. "The investigation team? The police?"

"No, no," Light shakes his head, "they trust me."

He glances at L, wonders if he could possibly have had anything to do with this, but then - no. No, of course not. He couldn't have managed it, and wouldn't have, anyway. He loves Light.

"They were speaking Japanese," Misa says, as he turns back to her, "but, I don't know, their accents were kind of weird. They sounded like westerners."

Light sighs, standing up. He'd known this would happen eventually, he'd just hoped it would have been a more direct confrontation, one that he could easily use to lend weight to his innocence. "Watari," he says. It's just one word, but by the way L turns to look at him, eyes wide and quietly forbidding, Light knows that he's right. Has known all along that the old man doesn't trust him, but he can't do anything without L, he's barely more than a butler with a sniper rifle, and he wouldn't kill Light if he thought that there was a chance that L was alive and he could use Light to find him.

That's what he'd been betting on, and that's what -

"If you kill Watari," L says, sitting up in bed, "I will kill you."

"Yeah, yeah," Light says, waving him aside to turn back to Misa, but before he can say anything else, there's a rough tug on the chain - he really should have just left him tied to the headboard - and he's being pulled face first toward L, who's suddenly standing and appearing much taller than he usually does, theatrical hunch momentarily abandoned.

He grabs Light by the chin, titling his face up like one would that of an uncooperative subordinate. Misa gasps ostentatiously.

"It's a mark of inexperience that you think I am pulling punches, but it's not charming and it's not cute and you are not endearing yourself to me. If you kill Watari, I will kill you. It is very simple." Light means to shove him off, but then his jaw is let go and L's hand is around his neck, thumb pressed to his throat and fingers tickling his top vertebra. "You're sloppy, much sloppier than you think you are, and a much easier target than you like to pretend to be."

"Hey!" Misa squeaks, uselessly.

Light does twist out of his grip then, although it feels curiously like he only succeeds because L lets him. It feels strangely like a betrayal, like L has stabbed him in the back, even though L has been aiming a knife at his front for as long as they've known each other.

"I have your name," he spits. He has the notebook, he holds the reigns, he owns L, and L needs to remember that. L is brilliant and clever and he looks good naked, but he is not worth more than the world and Light won't sacrifice it for him. If he needs to kill Watari, he'll kill Watari, and if he needs to kill L, he'll do it without a second thought.

He just needs to make sure he won't need to.

"Fine," L says, drooping back into his normal pose, "kill me. Call my bluff and write it. Make a little flourish coming off the _t_ the way you like to do. You won't and we both know you won't, so stop pretending that you will." His voice is softer now and he looks tired and very mussed, and Light thinks about L's hands around his thighs last night, about the way he'd bent him, the way it had hurt. He still aches slightly, still isn't quite used to the feel of having something, someone, _in_ him.

It's glorious, in more ways than one. Like penance for the both of them.

Misa's just standing stock still, arms still crossed across her chest, not even going for her notebook pages just in case Light had needed saving - he hadn't, of course, but it's the principle of it. A lot of good she is.

He straightens his shirt, looks around for a moment before realizing he hasn't brought a change of clothes. Nevermind, he'll need to go by Misa's - _their_ \- apartment, anyway. See if anything was left behind, if he can confirm the fact that it was Watari's doing. He must have operatives, in the vein of Aiber and Wedy, and - where _are_ Aiber and Wedy? They'd disappeared more or less right after L did, and Light had assumed they'd skipped town, had planned to knock them off in due time, but to give it a bit to avoid casting suspicion. But considering they're both in love with him or something, it makes sense that they'd stick around, in case L wasn't, by some chance, dead.

He'll have to look into that. He'll have to look into everything. L's right, of course. He has been sloppy. L has made him sloppy, has been distracting him so thoroughly that he's let the details slip between his fingers, and he can't let that continue.

"Misa, take L for a shower," he says, sneering slightly at the state of his own reflection and unlocking the cuff on his wrist. "If he escapes, I'll write both of your names down."

As he leaves, locking the door behind him, he just barely hears Misa's resignedly emphatic, "Ew."

 

\---

 

Misa leads him with the chain, putting as much space between them as possible. He doesn't struggle, lets her attach him to the shower rail and leans lazily against the grimy tile wall and watches her adjust her hair in the small mirror. She reapplies her lipgloss with an unsteady hand, the smack of her lips overly loud in the small room. The faucet drips and it feels like a poorly made horror movie set - something maudlin to do with Stockholm syndrome, perhaps. Maybe Light really will slaughter them in a fit of peak and no more will be said about.

"You're afraid," he says to Misa. The water droplets keep time, slowly, slowly, one after another. This is a place that's gone bad, or was never good in the first place. It's a far lower standard of living than he's used to, but it feels the same as every other room he's ever stayed in - detached, unremarkable; something completely separate from what he is.

She doesn't look at him. "I don't know what you're talking about, Ryuzaki." She reapplies her mascara expertly, painting herself in thick black swipes. She might be very warm and pink and alive under all of the layers, but from here she is just as cooly remote as her dear, dear Light.

"Of course," he says, without a shred of agreement in his voice. Without a shred of anything, really. He's trying to navigate how he feels about this situation - about Light, about her, about whether or not he hates them or can forgive them for what they are, or whether he could possibly justify caring for Light and condemning her, and if he even wants to. It's best to stay as far as possible from feeling anything, until he can sort it all out properly.

He pulls on his lower lip, stares at an errant crack in the ceiling plaster. It looks like a tree in winter, cemented purposefully above him to make him think of far away, overwhelming things. As if Light could plan out everything, even the minutest details of L's perception.

"You're more comfortable around me than you are him," he says, after a moment. "And you don't even like me."

She looks at him then, turning her made-up doll eyes on him. He admires her commitment, almost - not to Light, particularly, but to all of it. She's gotten herself into a mess of a thing - world domination tends to get messy - and most people in her position would have cut and run by now, devotion or no devotion.

"Don't be stupid," she says, but without the usual giddy inflection. It sounds like straight talk for once, and L appreciates the attempt, even if it's not for his benefit. She scratches at her arm, leaving little white marks across her skin, and L watches them fade to pink. She looks back at the mirror, says to him, "I'm sure he'll get tired of you at some point," with that same honest flatness of voice, "and then I can kill you."

L traces the lines of the tiles, waits for about forty seconds for his heart to stop - just out of curiosity - and then nods. "I'm sure he will."

 

\---

 

Six steps from the front door, two to the right. The floorboard with the scuff-mark on it. It comes looses easily enough - but not too easy, which is why he'd chosen it - and the Death Note looks a little bit like salvation from here. Like it had the first time: him in his cloudy, meaningless little world with everyone else, and the note was a rope, a ladder that pulled him up into the heavens. No, no, it didn't pull him up, he climbed it himself. The Death Note was only the means by which he traveled. The beautiful places he reached, places he _made_ , were all because of his own genius. He made his own destiny, wrote his own story.

He touches the cover, the material familiar against his fingers, and feels like God again. He never wants to feel anything different.

"You need to get me Watari's name," he says, not looking up. Rem is watching him, of course, is always watching for some slip up, something she can use to try to convince Misa that he's no good, but it's hopeless and they both know it. By now she ought to be resigned to her fate as his tool. Most everyone else is.

"I've told you before, Light Yagami," she says, dull voice grating on his eardrums, "I cannot give you the name of a human. If you were to make the eye trade - "

"Don't start," he says, flipping through the notebook with one hand. "You just want to get rid of me sooner." If the notebook is here, and the notebook's current owner is here, then that must mean -

He smiles slightly. "Ryuk?"

The familiar split-mouth grin fades in through the wall before him, and then he's looking at Ryuk face to face. They smile at each other the way old acquaintances might as Ryuk moves fully into the room, jagged black body filling the dull space up with his eerily comedic presence.

"Oh, hey, Light," he says, resting his head on his hand. He glances around the apartment skeptically, ugly eyes tracing the dust and disuse with the usual sparkling interest.

"I don't suppose you'll get me his name, will you?" Light asks.

Ryuk scratches his chin with an uncomfortably sharp nail. "Nah, sorry. No can do." He rolls his position, suddenly upright. "Hey, does this mean I'm back with you? Misa's cute and all, but all she does is change her clothes and talk to people on the phone. You're way more interesting."

"No," Light says, tearing out a couple more pages and then replacing the notebook, "this will have to stay here for now, and you have to stay with Misa." He sets the floorboard back in place, positioning it so it blends with all the others. No one can possibly find L, which means nobody could possibly find the note.

Light has to keep his most important belongings well protected.

 

\---

 

"This is assault," L says.

The fan whirs loudly in the large room and a warm summer breeze flows heavy through the windows, making the sheets hot and their skin stick together. B presses his mouth, slowly and experimentally, to L's collarbone.

"It's not assault," he mumbles, brushing the accusation off with a nasal smile in his voice. "I'm 12." He nips and tongues L's skin, and L just lies there sweating and rolling his eyes.

"I don't see what that's got to do with anything."

B's hand slips down, tracing over L's hips, touching the places where the bones press through his skin, imagining that they could pierce it and deflate him - like a bag full of hot air. The body is so strange that way. Or maybe it's the soul that doesn't belong. Both worthy things in their own right, but all jumbled up and wrong when combined. B imagines he could unzip L's skin and pull his soul right out of him, then unzip his own and let L crawl inside. Or the other way around - it doesn't matter, really. He's pressed flat to him, body spread out on top, a perfect mirror, but it's still not close enough.

And L doesn't understand. He's too selfish, too reasonable, and B's love confessions - hands and teeth and dead, brittle things - don't make any sense to him.

"I'm at a naturally curious age," B says, licking the crease of L's shoulder. His fingers tickle the line of L's pants, gaudily - like the porn mags that Grady keeps under his bed and thinks Quillish doesn't know about - mostly just to give L a chance to get used to the reality of B touching him and of him letting B touch him.

L glares at the ceiling and B can just barely make it out in the dark - his eyes are long adjusted, though, and he knows every bend of every feature, could draw it all from memory a hundred times over.

"So go touch yourself," L says.

B touches him in wrong places and kisses him too wetly and feels very silly and very scared and like he could tear the legs off of a thousand bugs and it still wouldn't be as thrilling as this, as touching L and having L's eyes go wide and his head press anxiously back into the pillow and his fingernails dig into his palms. Trying not to be bothered by it, but not succeeding.

B smiles. L twitches in his hand and glares harder. B wants to touch the bones, wants to tie himself to this moment so that he won't float away later, when everything will inevitably blur back out of focus.

"You are myself," he says.

 

\---

 

_Everything that exists of me is you._

B blinks.

It's raining. It rains too often here. His feet are wet and there are bums fighting in the alley across from him. They hadn't woken him up because he hadn't been asleep, but they'd cut into his mind, interrupted the flow of memory, and L is gone very quickly and everything is dirty and irrational again. Everything falls out of its rows and patterns.

There's a gunshot in the distance. Hm. Maybe it's not bums, then.

B rolls over, tries to crawl back into his head, but the rain is too heavy and someone is sobbing. Someone is always sobbing.

He'd missed London.

 

\---

 

L is toweling off and Misa is texting with vehemence in the doorframe when Light comes back in. L lets the towel fall to the side, making like he doesn't notice, but leaving an open view of his genitalia - one that Light locks his eyes on, then in the next moment, staunchly pretends no to have noticed.

He picks out something for L to wear without seeming to notice that he's doing it, the way one flips on a light-switch when they enter a room - too routine to register. L takes notice of it, though, can't not. Light provides his clothes and Light dresses him and Light could choose not to dress him, if he'd like, could leave him naked, or make him earn it, make him _beg_ , the way any proper captor would do. L's been imprisoned before, and for longer than this, and for a better reason, and Light's brand of confinement is comparatively tame. Perhaps he hasn't got the stomach for anything harsher.

"Misa," Light says, as L dresses himself with careless precision. She looks up, phone automatically forgotten, apparently drowned out by the sound of Light's voice - even mechanically uninvested as it sounds to L's ears. "Before you go to work, file a report with the police about the break-in last night. If you don't it will look suspicious. After that, go about your day as usual. I'll take care of the rest."

Misa nods like a good little solider, pig-tails bobbing. "Right. And the judgements?"

Light gives a vaguely disgusted glance, like he can't believe she has to ask. "Do the same amount as always."

"Yes," L calls over, "continue to slaughter dozens of people every day. People whom you've never met and who have no bearing on your life or present happiness. Enact an authoritarian death sentence that you have no particular investment in simply because your boyfriend tells you to. Brilliant. Excellent."

Light rolls his eyes, and L can practically see him ignoring the words and any substance they might contain. He's so intelligent on most matters, but it's almost as if he has a mental block in regards to Kira - or rather, himself. He's incapable of conceiving fault in any of his own actions, and if he were just a normal 18-year old boy with normal 18-year-old interests, it wouldn't be overly remarkable, and certainly not worth L's time. The fact that he somehow happened upon a magical killer notebook, combined with being brought up with firmly moralistic values, is what makes him more than just a tiny statistic on a tiny chart.

He is all the statistics on all the major crime reports worldwide, the biggest news story on every channel. He is a great and tremendous and unbearably constant overhanging force to every citizen of every country - whether for good or bad, whether they believe in Kira's vision or just attempt to avoid his wrath, he is important. Light Yagami was nobody a year ago. He made himself important.

That's where L disconnects; he was always somebody, _something_. Even before he properly understood what identity was, he had one.

It had been talent, sure - genius and ability and a certain small, sneaking cleverness particular to children of that age - but mostly it was just luck. He'd become what he is now by chance, a circumstance aligned just so. Watari had needed a base from which to build his beautiful machine, and L had been there, empty and unused, a void waiting to be filled.

It's an ugly way to look at it, but then truth tends to color things in unflattering shades.

"I believe in Kira's justice," Misa tells him, hands on hips, lips pouted prettily, like there's a camera around the corner or something. It's more a show for Light than for him, L knows, but he's paying more attention to how his hair looks in the bathroom mirror than anything else.

"Right," he says, not looking at Misa.

L waves his chained arm, drawing attention the fact that he can only manage to get half of his shirt on currently, and Light slips the key out of his sleeve - where he always keeps it and seems to think L hasn't noticed - and unlocks him only briefly enough to switch the cuff to the other hand. He holds L steady with a beleaguered, long suffering sort of look on his face, as if L is some man who'd broken into his home and insisted on being kept and imprisoned and treated like property, and Light is just withstanding the imposition out of the goodness of his dear heart.

L shakes his hair out, gets some water on Light's shirt and grins at the noise of disapproval he makes, subtly drawing his fingers along Light's wrist, so softly he might not even notice. He does, though, freezes for a moment, the way one does when touched by something monumental. L shoves down his grin, even though he's earned it, and Light draws his hands away, leading him back to his usual place on the bed.

L doesn't mind. He is owned, perhaps, but he is not the only one.

"I'll need the case files," L says, when he's chained securely to the headboard, curling his feet up beneath him. "As many as possible."

Light gives him a look as he straightens, like he's waiting for a punchline or something. Misa's texting again, likely doing whatever she can to ignore the fact that her truest love truly couldn't be more uninterested if he put effort into it - and it's quite a shame, too, given that she is such a pretty thing; L's sure he wouldn't say no, were she to ever ask. That's, of course, all dependent on the fact of her surely never asking.

"For the Kaito Hidaka case," L explains, then stops short, correcting himself. "Or not the Kaito Hidaka case, seeing as he hadn't really anything to do with it. The Liver case? The Tokyo Child Killer? Come on, these kinds of things need names if I'm to work on them properly." He chews on his pinky, twisting the skin around between his teeth, worrying the flesh into overturned patterns.

"You want to work on the case," Light says, not bothering the raise it into a question at the end. He brushes a bit of invisible lint off of his jacket, then looks at L with dull expectance. And it's all put on, of course - no doubt Light is calculating the possible risks and benefits of such a liberty, even as his eyes look young and simple, like the eyes of any pretty boy in university.

L pulls at his lip. "Well, yes. I'm bored, Light. I need something to do. I feel like a housewife with limited mobility and without a proper house. Give me something to do. I can do it." He sits up then, without really meaning to, but then commits to the role: wide eyes, errant fingers, pale and bleak and mesmerizing.

He knows how to make anyone feel things. Light is not an exception, as far as this goes.

"I suppose these case files would be in your system?" Light says, brushing at his sleeves, trying to look as unconcerned as possible.

"Don't think you can hack it," L says, "you can't." He leans back against one of his allotted pillows, lumpy and uncomfortable as it is - he misses hotel-fluff and high thread counts - and goes through the process in his head. "The local police force has likely contacted Watari, but I doubt he'd give you any information on possible criminals, especially if it's _my_ information. No, better to go straight to the source. Hack the NPA, I know you can do that." He almost smiles at Light, but thinks better of it. "They'll have as much information as the police normally have - which is not much - but it's a start."

Light frowns. His warm, clever fingers play along the edge of the bedspread. "I'll see if I have time," he says, casually, though L takes it as more or less a guarantee. "I have a lot I need to do today."

Of course he does, mass murder necessitates a busy schedule, but he'll do as L asks. He's convinced himself - for propriety, no doubt - that he's very concerned and horrified by the murders of these children, and even if the only thing he really cares about is stopping the heart of whoever did it, he cares a lot. Kaito Hidaka had been a losing bet and he'll want to right the score, catch the one that got away, if only to prove his own eminence and power to himself - as if he really needs convincing.

Either way, it suits L's purposes, and as Light turns to leave, he calls, without shifting from his balled-up stance, "And coffee, I need coffee. And something sweet. Doesn't matter what. Anything. Many thanks."

Misa scoffs, jabs her phone buttons and stomps out in her heavy boots. Light looks L up and down and almost smiles, before following her out.

 

\---

 

Bert catcalls every day and Mello gets used to it. He spits his tobacco on the sidewalk and Mello learns not to stand to his left. He curses loudly and often and Mello learns that calling people cuntboxes has a rather enjoyably unsettling effect. Bert doesn't like Mello and Mello doesn't like Bert, but they get on with the job, which is the only thing that matters.

Job, money, a plane ticket. Japan, L.

The latter too are rather more fuzzy in conception, as Mello only speaks passable Japanese and has terrible trouble with Kanji. And L - L's probably dead. The thought seeps in on late nights, in his dinky little motel room, when the hum of the dull lamplight crawls into his head and he can't think, can't breathe, it all becomes too much to handle. He wishes Matt were here.

_Fuck_ , he wishes Matt were here.

Watson - the other man, the only one he generally meets with besides Bert - is actually alright. He's professional, gets the job done, and doesn't waste words. He and Mello can go whole hours on the pier without speaking, just walking up and down and scanning for unlicensed sellers encroaching on their section of the city. And it's strange to think of it in those terms - _their_ \- as if this is a group that Mello belongs to and not one he'd momentarily attached himself to for no purpose further than survival. He puts aside most of his pay for a plane ticket and fake passport and a little something to get him by once he makes it to Japan, but in the meantime, he does have to eat and make rent and replace his boots, which are ragged and coming apart at the edges.

Bert spits when he sees the new ones, shiny and leather and hot as fuck - if Mello's being completely honest - and makes a lot of disparaging comments regarding cock-sucking and bending over and the phrase _'twinkly little bastard,'_ which more amuses than fazes him, even though he hasn't heard that kind of thing since he was twelve and some shit for brains who must have gotten into Wammy's by pure luck said something derisive - though much diluted from Bert's usual fare - about Mello falling asleep with his head in Matt's lap in the library.

Mello had beaten the kid so badly he'd needed stitches. Matt had watched on quietly, smoking one of his earliest cigarettes, letting Mello tear the boy up. He hadn't cared, hadn't tried to stop him, hadn't been shocked and outraged the way the rest of the students had been. The boy had been sent to the nurse and Roger had put Mello on a month of probation that involved a lot of studying in Roger's office after class, being told that while 'faggot' is certainly not a nice word, breaking someone's ribs isn't particularly nice either.

Mello had gotten a hundred percent on his next three tests, though, and Roger had ended his probation early.

"About Bert," Watson says once, when they're waiting in some shit coffee shop for a pick-up.

"Oh, is he just swell once you get to know him?" Mello asks, disdain evident as he trails his fingertips dully along the sticky tabletop. He doesn't want to hear about how the asshole who is constantly harassing him is just insecure, or scarred from the death of his dear mother, or some other kind of bullshit that people use to excuse themselves for being shitheads.

There's a woman in a seat by the window who keeps glancing at him, probably because of the faux-leather pants that Watson had dropped in his lap the other day, telling him to try to blend. Mello thinks about looking back at her, but doesn't know how.

Watson almost laughs, usual smile twitching larger. "Heh," he says, "no. Bert's a twat. Always been a twat, as far as I know, but he's important in the business, which means that it's important for him to like you well enough. You don't have to be mates, just don't let him get to you, is all."

Mello sips his shit coffee. It burns his tongue, makes his mouth taste thick and uncomfortable, like ash and caffeine. Watson's right, of course, but it's easier said than done. "I thought you were important in the business," Mello mumbles, stirring in more sugar, for lack of anything better to do. He'd rather have hot cocoa, honestly, but admitting as much is not likely to earn him much street cred.

"I am," Watson says, a quiet twinkle in his eye, "but I already like you, so no need to worry about that."

It's a nice feeling, almost, to hear that. It's not as if Watson is the pinnacle of brilliance or anything, but his approval jags warmly in Mello's chest, like something heavy and unfamiliar. He doesn't smile or blush or anything stupid like that, but he feels like he could, maybe. Maybe if it was someone else saying it.

The woman at the window seat keeps looking at him, and Mello shifts in his chair, uncomfortable. She might be pretty, although he hasn't really gotten a good look at her, just a long curtain of dark hair and her fingers scrabbling over the keyboard of her phone. Probably texting her friends, probably just a normal chick with nothing to do with any of the sort of things that Mello is all wrapped up in.

Mello coughs, tries to stomach his coffee again and can't quite manage it.

Watson nods out the window at the two well-dressed men standing on the street corner. "They're here."

As they leave to pay, Mello glances subtly at the woman's table, but she's already gone.

 

\---

 

The computers hum and the investigation team watches him in stunned silence. Without L, the place feels empty, completely devoid of life. He might as well be talking to a set of mannequins.

"They broke into my home, Dad," Light says, voice taut with restrained emotion. It would makes sense for him to become hysterical in this situation, but he hasn't really the energy for it, so he'll instead impress them with his strength of will at being able to hold back his voice, to keep from yelling. "Misa's frightened out of her mind. She was afraid to leave the house this morning. I had to hold her hand down our apartment steps."

He looks imploringly at the group of officers, watching them each fall into excessive sympathy. Light is one thing, but Misa's the ticket, the thing to get them all outraged. Poor, helpless Misa Amane, too pretty to hurt a fly. Heh. He thinks Matsuda might be tearing up.

His father is, of course, worried, but also predictably skeptical. "Are you sure it wasn't just a regular break-in?" he asks. "Couldn't it be unconnected to the Kira case?"

There's a hopeful note in his voice, one Light recognizes from months of conveniently mounting evidence that pointed to the undeniable conclusion of Light's innocence. As much as he'd like for his father to get his wish, to be able to sit back and relax, just for a few days, that's not the direction he needs to conversation to go in.

Luckily, Aizawa steps in to steer it for him.

"I don't know, Chief," he says, slightly stroking his stubble. "It doesn't really add up. It's too nice a part of town to have high crime rates, but not ritzy enough for ambitious criminals to think they could get some really expensive stuff."

Light would take offense at his apartment being deemed of only medium quality if he had spent enough time in it to be an accurate judge as to whether or not Aizawa is right, but as it is, doesn't have time for offense, or any petty thing like that.

"Besides," he adds, "nothing was taken. No, I'm sure it's all connected somehow. I just don't know how." He sits down, then stands up again, displaying his fractured indecision, and of course, making sure his underlying misery regarding L's absence is clearly recognizable. If L were here, he knows they know, this would all be different. He would solve everything, fix the world - at least, that's what Light wants them to think. The truth is more wrapped up in L's thighs, in his cock and hands and stuttering breath.

Even when he's fucking Light, he feels fragile - maybe even more so then - a burnt-rock thing made of glass. Light's mind makes poetry out of L and lights fires from the kindling of words he won't speak. He becomes something wondrous and separate from the world around him, and L keeps him there, floating high and brilliant and immeasurable.

L is a shit and a delusional idiot. L doesn't care about enough things. L is surely not as attractive as Teru Mikami.

And yet.

"Maybe," Matsuda starts, and of course Light had known he would be the one who would. He is so young and incapable, and of course he would. "I mean," he tries again, "couldn't it possibly have been L?" He looks around at the other investigators, wide-eyed and cautiously hopeful. "Maybe he's still alive." He looks at Light, almost apologetically. "Maybe he's still investigating you."

"Matsuda," his father says sternly, before Light can react properly, "that's not possible. We've looked everywhere, checked all of the flights out - "

"No, no, it's an interesting theory," Light says. Pausing to sit down gain, hand to chin. Ever the darling thinker. After a moment, he looks around at the team. "You all know I haven't given up on the hope that L could still be out there, I just - " he looks down at the floor, the shiny leather of his shoes, "I would have liked to think that he would trust me by now."

"But if he doesn't," Ide puts in, looking excited, mostly because since he's been part of the investigation team, nothing much has really happened, and the break-in at Light's had more or less made his day, "not that I'm saying he has any reason not to - but if he doesn't, he might have left headquarters because he was worried about his safety. He might have relocated, and is continuing his investigation from somewhere else. Maybe even out of the country. We haven't seen Aiber and Wedy lately, either, maybe they're with him."

Light can see the excitement spreading from officer to officer, only really missing his father, who still looks stern and skeptical. And this conclusion isn't _exactly_ what Light was shooting for, but it will inevitably lead to what he wants, anyway, and if the belief that L is still alive is necessary to have them cast suspicion elsewhere, then he will deal with it.

"But Light is innocent," his father says, "and besides…." He glances over towards one of the screens, the one that Watari usually uses to communicate to them, and then looks back at the team. And the question is deafening, even though it's been left unspoken.

_If L really is alive, and has moved headquarters, then wouldn't he have taken Watari with him?_

Matsuda is the first one to speak, and he comes up with the right answer for once in his life, the answer Light needed someone to speak: "Maybe he left Watari to, you know, spy on Light!" he says, in a very loud whisper, sounding quietly panicked.

Ide looks thrilled at this development. Light's father looks concerned. Light would look self-satisfied if he could get away with it.

He shakes his head, shoulders straightening. "I can't believe that. The moment we become suspicious and turn against each other is the moment that Kira wins." He glances over the computer. "I have to hold Watari-san's presence in good faith."

The other investigators nod, but look around, and Light is assured then that they, of course, won't.

 

\---

 

The morning is grey and thin and the streets smell like cold smoke. As on most days, they send Matsuda out to get breakfast, and Aiber watches him come around the corner from where he leans against the side-wall of some little shop that never seems to be open, despite the lights always being on. It's early enough that the city isn't full to bursting yet, and there's space enough on the sidewalk to breathe easy and stay hidden.

He doesn't stay hidden for long. "Officer," he calls, moving out of his slump to raise a hand and take slow steps after Matsuda.

"Aiber-san?" the man says, brow going confused. He doesn't bother to fake a smile, probably couldn't if he tried. One of the few boons of idiocy is sincerity - there is no doubt of Touta Matsuda's honest goodness, because there is no doubt of his inability to lie. "What are you doing here? I thought - "

"I had fucked off after L went missing?" Aiber says with a slight smile, catching up to Matsuda but not stopping, just continuing the slow pace and forcing him to follow. "It's a fair bet, and if I knew where he was, I probably would be with him."

"Oh." Matsuda scratches awkwardly at the back of his head, looking to be on the very edge of uncomfortable. "You don't - you don't think he's dead?" He speaks lowly and purposefully, clearly less of a joke when he's out of the spotlight. A real person, almost - which is funny, because Aiber doesn't think of any of the investigators as particularly being individual people; they're just a conglomeration of inaccuracy to him, a blunt tool that Kira is using to corral the world, because that's all he needs to see them as.

It's almost funny, because L, who is impersonal and judgmental as all-fuck, undoubtedly knows them all inside out, from the bare facts to the human truths, to what they'd each eaten for lunch eight weeks ago. L is like that. It's not kindness - L has no capacity to be kind - just a specific brilliance.

Aiber shrugs, makes it look as casual as he can. "And how would Kira get his name?" He stops at the corner, and Matsuda trips over his own feet trying to keep pace, stumbling out a sound that may be the beginning of a puzzled reply, but Aiber cuts him off, flipping open the cigarette carton that had been left on his pillow, half-empty and covered in lipstick stains. "Do you smoke?"

He slips one between his lips and lights it up with a clumsy thumb. Matsuda shakes his head dumbly.

"No, me neither," Aiber says, "but Wedy's gone, so somebody's got to pick up the slack." He breathes in the smoke deep, clogging himself with it. It smells like her and the sentimentality of that thought almost amuses him. He wishes L smelled like something, something besides L, something he could set beside his bed to grab and play around with when he got bored. Something he could keep and have.

"Anyway," he says, watching the streets fill up slightly, "in order to kill L, Kira would need his name, right? And in order to get that, he'd have to know who L was, which means he'd need to be on the investigation team. And the only Kira suspect on the team is Yagami - junior, of course - which means that if L's dead, then Light's Kira, and if Light's definitely not Kira, then L's definitely not dead."

The logic is faulty of course, and if L were here, he'd berate him about it and quote philosophical principals of argument at him and get very huffy and mean because Aiber would only laugh him off, but L's not here and Matsuda isn't the brightest guy, and if you say anything to him in a convincing voice, he'll take it as God's honest truth.

He pulls at his shirts sleeves, then his collar, brow furrowed in thought, then asks Aiber, "So which do you think it is?"

Aiber smiles slightly, almost pleased because Matsuda's asking the right questions. Good boy. "I think it's both," he tells him, blowing out smoke. "That L's not dead, but Light is Kira."

"But that doesn't - you just said - " Matsuda struggles with the words, the thoughts and he pulls at his clothes some more, as if he thinks he can adjust himself into understanding.

"I know what I said," Aiber breathes, dropping his cigarette and crushing it underfoot - even though Tokyo has public ashtrays everywhere, even has special smoking sections on the street; Aiber deliberately ignores them. "I say things all the time. They don't mean anything." He pushes off from the corner, walking towards a decent looking coffee shop where they might have a passable cappuccino - there's too much tea in Japan and Aiber doesn't understand it - and Matsuda follows him in, stopping to hold the door open for a young woman with a shy smile and backpack slung over her shoulder.

They get in line, standing quietly in the soft din of the shop until, after a moment or two, Matsuda asks, without quite looking at him, "Aiber-san, how well do you know L?"

"Better than Light does," Aiber says, turning on his most self-deprecatingly charming smile and aiming it at him. "Better than most people do." He nods at the man behind the counter. "Cappuccino, please."

Matsuda orders several coffees and teas for the team, and even a few pastries - as if there's anyone left at the headquarters who will eat them - and Aiber waits with him, sipping his drink with his head leant against the wood-paneled wall.

Matsuda clears his throat after a moment, looking down at his hands. "I don't want to offend you, or, or pry or anything," he says, "but were you two - um - "

Hmm. So he's more perceptive than he looks, anyway. That's something. He doesn't wait for Matsuda to finish asking the question, even though it might prove vaguely amusing to watch him squirm his way through the words.

"Yeah, we were," he says, not outright explaining it, but not really outright needing to. "And so were he and Light, in case it wasn't obvious." He smirks at the only slightly shocked look that twists Matsuda's face, then heads for the door, nodding back as he goes. "Thanks for the drink."

 

\---

 

His phone rings as he steps out of the cafe. He smiles to himself as he flips it open and presses the speaker to his ear. "Reckless," Watari tells him from the other end of the line. He sounds tired and grim, in a half-amused sort of way. He's no kindly grandfather, that's for sure, but sometimes Aiber thinks he's not as bad as all that.

"Don't worry," Aiber replies, stepping onto the sidewalk to blend into the mass of the crowd. They've been over this - it will work, at least better than sending scare tactics at Miss Amane will.

Watari's voice seems to grow more tired in the moment it takes him to speak. "I'm sure I never do."

 

\---

 

Light's bought a space heater because the apartment's central system is broken, and taking it up with landlord would presumably draw unwanted attention to their situation. Perhaps if Light were a handyman sort it would be very different - he could take his shirt off and sweat heavily and wear a tool-belt and go to work; at least in L's fantasy he could, and those far outweigh the worth of the reality, which would most likely involve a lot of cursing and frustration, especially if Light couldn't get it on the first try. L's actually quite confident in his ability to repair, or at least discern a way to repair, most systems by just looking at them, but Light's not keen on taking him out into the front room and promptly declines his offer.

So, space heater. And bottled water and shitty connivence store sweets and a pen and notepad - no computer, of course, no access to anything that could possibly lead to escape or alert of his location - and a proper lamp or two. L sits on the floor - had tried the desk chair, but it had been too rickety to suit - and Light is spread out next to him.

Two young boys, ages 11 and 12 respectively, with no apparent connection - different schools, different social classes, different parts of town - beyond being young boys. No fingerprints or hair follicles left at either scene, no bodily evidence beyond the semen. It's the same in both cases, of course, and since the rest of the boys' bodies been cleaned to an almost obsessive degree - even the mouth, even the empty cavity where the liver had been removed - it seems obvious that the perpetrator had left his genetic material there purposefully, a sort of mark, a, "Here I am!"

He wants to be caught, or - rather more likely - to be chased.

"It's disgusting," Light says, leaning over L's shoulder to examine the file with the air of someone looking down at a bug that they mean to squash as soon as they can find a heavy enough object.

The crime scene photos clearly upset him, and on more than just a moral level, but he won't stop looking at them. There's a very visceral, almost fearful reaction to the sort of violence displayed, and perhaps once upon a time L had been unaccustomed enough to participate in it, but any feelings of shock or disgust have been wrung from him since, and now it's more or less routine.

"He's a monster," Light says, fingers tracing over the pictures, as if he could reach in and touch the ugliness. Touch it and destroy it and wipe it away, leaving a clean, crisp slate.

L knows better. That's not what you do with ugliness; you have to understand it first.

"He's a person," L tells him, without taking his eyes off of the coroner's notes. "Well, presumably." There is, after all, a Shinigami that occasionally sticks its strange head in on them, though Light promptly orders her out whenever he notices. "A terrible person, but imagining that anyone who commits horrifying acts must be something separate from human paints quite an unrealistic picture of humanity." He scribbles _timeframe?_ in the margin of one of his pages, then turns it.

Light frowns. Of course he frowns. He's made an olympic-level sport out of vehemently disapproving of L's morals and he's going for the gold medal.

"So we should all just resign ourselves to being rotten and destructive, incapable of improving our nature?" Light snipes, sitting up slightly, like he can no longer bear to be close or comfortable with L.

L puffs out a breath, almost rolling his eyes. He generally works alone to avoid conversations just such as this. "If you're asking if I think that the man who murdered and raped those children shouldn't be caught and tried for his crimes - "

"I'm asking if you think that it's unreasonable to expect people to not murder and rape in the first place?" Light snaps, back going straighter, which - touché. He's far from being right, but he's hardly experienced or world-weary enough to think anything but that. That human beings can be controlled and appealed to using only the power of reason.

An idealistic child. L had always said so.

"To a certain extent," he tells Light, not shifting out of his slump. "Mammals kill and fuck and then they die, and although it's a very nice idea to think that we, as a species, can completely disconnect ourselves from our base, violent parts, a number of people slip through the cracks simply as a matter of course." He doesn't need to hear Light's disgusted choke to know that he disagrees. "I believe the common term for it is, 'evil',' or, in some cases, 'mental illness.'"

He does flick his eyes at Light then, to see if he takes the comment in the vein that L intends it, but of course it doesn't even register. When talking about murderers, Light completely disassociates himself from the category, which is ridiculous, seeing as he's killed more people than most of the inmates on death row combined. To him, it's just Godly intervention. He can find no flaw in his own dogma, not because he believes that Kira's actions are objectively right - the last few months without his memories can attest to that - but simply by virtue of it being _his_. There is some level of psychotic narcissism here just waiting to be diagnosed by an eager psychotherapist somewhere. Maybe when this all over, L will forgo the execution and just send Light to therapy.

As if it could ever be that simple.

"And those of us who manage not to succumb to our inherent horribleness should have to suffer because of those who do?" Light spits, with a quiet, determined loathing, like he's flipped on the _justice_ setting in his operational panel and can now focus on nothing else. L half-wishes he could switch him off.

"Everyone suffers in some form or another," L says, turning back to his files, "and the violence is necessary, if not on a personal level, then in the grand scheme. Your quest to erase all of this from the world in one broad stroke - along with turning the planet into an international police state; congratulations on that, by the way - takes nothing into the account but the most basic, uncomplicated facts of the matter - "

Light is leaning forward now, getting in L's face. He rocks between extremes of disgust and obsessive attachment when it comes to L, and - given how much their relationship, whatever it may be, is necessary for Light to maintain his identity - it can't be particularly healthy. Nothing about Light can.

"And yet, I've done more for crime rates in the last year than you've managed over the course of, what is it, a 17 year career?" he says, breathing into L's face. He smells like mouthwash and tea. The animosity drains out of his voice for a moment and then he cocks his head and asks, in what might be a slightly impressed tone, "You've been solving crimes since you were eight?"

L fiddles with his pen, tries not to smile. "Six, technically."

Light deflates then, and if there's a fight to be had on this matter - which there surely is - it's shoved to the back for now, both of them putting it aside in favor of their mutual enjoyment of one another.

"You're brilliant," Light says, looking almost proud, like L's accomplishments somehow reflect on him.

"Yes."

"I'm brilliant," he continues, because he's in that sort of mood now.

"Yes."

"You love me," Light says, going a step further, but L will only humor him for so long.

He rolls his eyes. "Hand me that file, will you?" he says.

Light doesn't hand him the file. Light wraps his hand around L's throat and sends him down heavily into the floor, shoulder blades knocking hollowly with the impact. The pressure is quick and exciting and unexpected - only worth anything because of how unexpected it is. This is not fair. This is not how the scene goes, how they work, trudging on, shoulder to shoulder, ignoring the bad parts and poking fun at the good. L hadn't seen this coming and it's not fair and Light isn't letting up the pressure, isn't stopping, isn't even speaking.

L can't see him. His hands are free enough, although one is still chained to the bed, but he doesn't move them. He wants to see where this is going. Wants to beat himself for not having expected it.

Light's face appears very suddenly, shifts into view, like he's finished putting on his stage make-up and running the lines, and is now fit for performance. L struggles for breath.

"Are you one of them?" Light asks, from up above, from so far away. "A monster? Have you slipped through the cracks?" There's a curious note in his voice, as if he's at once lost his mind and gone more lucid than he usually is. He is touching something that exists, saying something that he actually thinks instead of sweeping around with hand gestures and rhetoric and teenage superiority.

"Do you - " L starts to says - _do you think I am?_ \- but Light's either looking for another answer or doesn't want an answer at all, just wants to hear himself speak, wants to say the words and for L to listen.

"You're six years older than me," Light says. Simple, clean and dry; his voice keeps draining and writhing, bouncing from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other. "When I was 12 you were 18."

"So - "

"So, would you have raped and murdered me and cut out my liver?"

It's a very strange question to be asked, but L knows this role well enough; after the sex and the companionship and the quiet assurances, after all that, when he finally has enough evidence, when he pulls the rug out from under the monster of the week and sends off his report to the police, that's when his part changes. He is the betrayer and he always, always gets his man, and he always goes home and has tea and watches the ceiling and cycles through reports for his next case and reboots everything very nicely.

"I don't see any reason why I should have," L says.

World domination is not a team sport and L isn't going to pretend to agree with Light's idiotic dichotomy just to earn favor, just to keep from being choked. If Light wants to argue this, he can let up and stop playing the teary-eyed victim and stop pretending that anything truly bad has happened to him in his life, as if he can identify with the plight of the population he purports to want to save.

"What about simple human violence?" Light asks. "You're a mammal, aren't you? What's the difference between you and them?" His words are less than perfectly sane, but his tone is so even and measured. "What's the difference between me and them? What the difference between you and me?"

"Well, currently," L says, "it's that one of us is about to pass out."

Light lets up his grip, fingers loosening to stroke along L's neck. It should be intimate, but it's not, feels like being touched by metal and rubber. Is it okay to really like someone and also hate them so much at the same time?

"What makes a person evil, L?" Light asks, leaning closer. "Is it action, is it moral views, or is it just something tangible?" He taps his fingers along L's jaw and looks like he's somewhere that isn't this shit apartment in god knows what part of Tokyo. "I can taste it. I look at their faces and I can taste it."

"And what does my face taste like?" L asks.

Light kisses him and it's not at all rough. L sometimes wants to sink into him, to like him in a way that he can maybe like someone like him, but right now it feels uncomfortable, almost squalid in a way. He's so sick of everything that this is and if there was a clean way for them to go on a break - maybe imprison other people for a while - L would suggest it.

"I want to kill you every night," Light says, matter-of-factly, as he pulls back. "I'm so bothered by you. I want to kill you over and over again, but if I just do it the once then you're gone and where does that get me?" He kisses the corner of L's mouth and it's kinder this time, but still no good, still all twisted up in something twisting that Light tends to throw into situations. "Do you ever just want to kill everyone?" he asks, after a moment.

That's a very mad thing to say and Light just might be earning extra-credit on his Kira suspicion with it, but - _but_. "Yes," L says. Light kisses him again and it feels like pulling out the bones.

 

\---

 

It's very easy to get his number from the front office and even easier to get him to agree to another lunch meeting.

The cafe is too loud, the tea isn't very good, and Mikami won't stop wiping his hands. Light smiles, leans in, and draws the toe of his shoe up Mikami's calve. He freezes, goes stiff, and wipes his hands again. He's either very uncomfortable or very turned on or both.

"What are you doing, Yagami-kun?" he says lowly.

Light's smile twitches. "I'm seducing you, Mikami-san. Can you not tell?"

Mikami takes off his glasses, wipes them, and puts them back on. Light wonders if he's ever been comfortable anywhere in his life, thinks probably not.

 

\---

 

Mikami doesn't kiss anything like L, but that's okay, that's exactly right, because L kisses like dust and tastes like crumbling civilization and salt and fear and unworthy things. L rocks between being absolutely necessary and completely unbearable and Light can't decide what to do with him or do about him. He sometimes wants to murder him graphically and sometimes wants to kill him very softly, drug him just a little too much, put him to sleep and then lie on the bed next to him as he drifts off into non-existence.

It would need to be a bigger bed. The room would need more windows. Light wants to smash things and wants to scribble in the Death Note. He can't kill Watari, not because of L, but because he can't manage to get his name. That's fine. There are plenty of other people that could afford to be gotten rid of and, as it turns out, Light can hack into L's system.

He'd written the names down before meeting up with Mikami, and as he presses him into the mattress, the analog clock at the bedside ticks right down to the minute.

_Timothy Morello, Melissa Kenwood._ So long, goodbye, terrible to know you. He thinks about tracking down everyone who's ever touched L at all and killing them in creative ways, but it feels like far too much work for someone so worthless.

Mikami is rather hard work - enjoyable, malleable, different - but hard work. He squirms and gasps like he's afraid to come, and Light has to bodily drag it out of him, but it's worth it. It makes him feel like God. L just makes him feel diseased.

Another child is murdered two days later, a girl this time. Light prints out the file and brings it to L, box of donuts in hand, charming smile on his face.

 

\---

**tbc.**

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry all of their relationship problems are stupid. I'm sorry they're both a bit stupid. I must be as well, since I've committed myself to writing these bastards. Apologies to the reader who was so relieved last chapter that Light didn't sleep with Mikami. I felt so bad when I read that, because this one had already been planned and drafted. On the one hand, I'd like to make everyone happy, but on the other, I'd like to make everyone yell and cry and threaten to punch my lights out. Ideally, it'd be a combination of the two.
> 
> Thank you for reading. I would really appreciate any and all feedback, good or bad, but I still love you all whether or not you review.


	12. the cure for death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOU MEAN THERE'S PLOT IN THIS CHAPTER? WHOA, JUMP BACK. I know, it's an unlikely event with this story, so I felt I should warn you. For real, though. Things start happening. Lots of Mello this week, and a surprise guest appearance by someone who will surprising to absolutely no one ever. Sorry this update was ridiculously slow. I was 1) traveling, 2) sick and 3) sewing at a break-neck pace to finish my cosplay in time. animazment this weekend! weee!
> 
> warning for slight gore, slight dub-con, and attempted non-con (and not involving the two characters you'd think.)

_"As if, darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part."_  
\- Herman Meliville, _Moby Dick: or, the White Whale_

\---

 

"I fucked someone else," is one of the first things Light says.

There are no pictures on the walls here. He likes that. His parent's house is covered in pictures of him as a child. He's the same person, when it comes down to it, as he was and as he's always been, but he resents himself anyway simply for ever having been even slightly different from what he is now.

"Misa?" L asks, without looking at him. "I'm sure she appreciated it."

"Not Misa," he says, setting down the box of donuts. L does glance up then and he looks like a machine with all of his wires gutted out. Light wants to imagine that it's blatant jealousy, that it's raging in him like a storm, but is pretty sure that that's mostly just L's face.

There are no pictures. He has no pictures of L, which would be unremarkable - why would he want pictures of L? He's not particularly good looking and he's right there, besides - but for the fact that no one has pictures of L. No one. Light makes a note to himself to buy a disposable camera next time he goes out. It's an owning gesture, in some ways. They say a photograph can steal your soul.

L sits up. "Hmm. Light-kun has so many girlfriends, it's hard to keep track."

"It wasn't a girl," he says. L is on the floor with a mess of papers. Light sits down on the bed and shrugs out of his jacket, slips off his shoes. "Do you mind if I get some sleep? You can bounce your theories off of me afterward." He lies down, spreading out and pulling the top-sheet up to his hips. The space heaters have made the room pleasantly warm. L's bed is always unmade.

The pillows smell like L in a slightly disgusting way and Light makes another note to wash them. It's all little notes these days. Grand plans are tiring and he's got plenty of time. L takes up his time these days. L is what he has these days. That -

That's a disgusting way to think.

Light's skin is itchy. He waits for L to respond and feels his skin heating up, wants to strip but doesn't want to be naked. He sits up in bed. "Did you hear me?" he asks, throwing nonchalance to the wind, because it clearly isn't working. His voice sounds loud. The heater is louder.

"You were getting some sleep?" L says, glancing at him over his shoulders, and Light can tell from the look on his face that this is all a joke to him. He might be jealous and he might not, but he's too much of a stony bastard to show or tell or give Light any emotional satisfaction. He almost smiles and Light knows it even though L gives no indication of it and Light wonders if it's L or him who's having these thoughts, L's thoughts. Maybe L is just a projection of himself and doesn't exist at all. Maybe he's locked his own mind in a windowless room.

No, that's not right. That's crazy in the first place, but in the second place, that's not right at all. L is important because he is proof of life, of sentient, worthy existence beyond Light himself. If L is Light then the world really is rotten to the core, and there isn't anything worth saving.

"I said I slept with someone else," Light repeats. He hears his own annoyance. He's ashamed of it, but also proud in a way, because no matter how immature he gets, he's still the obvious adult in the relationship.

"I heard you."

Light is sitting up in bed and L is sitting on the floor and it's too hot in the room. "You know I could escape if I wanted to," L murmurs after a moment, "don't you?"

Light is sitting up in bed and L is sitting on the floor and -

"Yes," Light says.

He gets out of bed and sits down next to L on the floor. "Ask me about the man that I had sex with." His words are too hot in the hot room and, before L can do as he's told, Light reaches over to the space heater to turn it down. "Hold on." He moves back. "Okay, ask me."

L tilts his head, like he doesn't understand, but it's only for a moment - it only takes L a moment when it comes to any puzzle - then he smiles indulgently. "Tell me about the man you had sex with, Light-kun."

The honorific is representative of something - maybe of the boy that there are photos of all over Light's old house; pictures of a child's stolen soul - and Light would resent it if he could remember to. He'll make a note of it. "He was nothing like you," he says. He wants to lay his head on L's shoulder, but that feels like something he can't touch right now, so he lies back on the floor. The carpeting is dirty. Light is so tired. "I thought he was at first, but he wasn't. He was unremarkable. He was just like the rest of them."

"I'm going to tell you a terrifying secret, Light-kun," L says, trailing his along on the floor next to him, touching the dust with his flat, blunt nails. It's all so dirty. Light makes a note to vacuum.

He slips his hand into L's. It's very cold in comparison, like shoving his fingers into a creek. "Tell me," Light says. Time passes very quickly all of a sudden and it feels like minutes have elapsed, even though it's quite obvious they haven't. "Tell me."

"The secret is that _I_ am just like the rest of them," L says in a whisper that sounds too loud. "The secret is, so are you." He presses his lips to Light's knuckles, one at a time.

"No," Light says. He might be laughing, but then suddenly he's not. He's definitely not. It's too hot. He wants to turn the heater lower still. "You're lying."

"You'll grow out of this someday, I'm sure," L says, brushing Light's hair out of his eyes. "We all go through phases where we want to destroy the world."

But no, no, that's wrong. Light is God and Light is a savior. Light can do anything. Light can fuck guest lecturers and Light can own people and Light can walk with monsters at his back. He wonders where Ryuk is. He doesn't miss him, but he's used to him, and it feels wrong that he's not there, grinning through the walls.

L is pressing something cold and dead to his forehead and it spikes his blood wrong.

"I want to save the world," he tells the cold dead thing that is actually L's hand. "I'm trying to save the world."

"You're burning up," L says.

Light smiles. Light smiles because _finally_ someone understands.

 

\---

 

"He put his cock in you yet, or are you saving that honor for me, princess?" Bert says, tapping his ashes out. The ceiling fan is on today, even though it's cold enough already that Mello's fingers shiver in his thin gloves, and Watson has just gone in the front room to talk to some man that Mello's not allowed to speak to and couldn't care less about.

"Fuck off," he tells Bert, not looking up, and trying to keep the teeth-grit anger out of his voice. Bert is a fuck, but it's not as bad as it could be. That's his mantra of late: not as bad as it could be.

Bert's eyes twinkle at him, lips twitching, and he doesn't want Mello to keep quiet or calm, wants screaming and tantrums and childish things, little boy things. Fucking pervert.

"I'm only trying to help you, doll," he says, flicking his cigarette twice in quick succession. "Wat, yeah, he's alright on the job, but a right sod outside of it. Best be on your guard, or he might slip you it without you even knowing." He quirks his eyebrow and it's ugly - uglier - the sort of casual obscenity that Mello's trying to force himself to be okay with.

"I think I'd fucking notice," he says, shoving his hair out of his face. It slips from behind his ears. Bert says it makes him look like a girl. Mello thinks Bert looks like the wrong end of a motorcycle accident, but has kept as much to himself out of sheer self-preservation.

"Of course you think you fucking would," Bert laughs, thick and dirty and mocking with every breath. "Little poof."

Could be worse, Mello reminds himself. He could be stuck with an asshole who actually has more than one insult. "You're the one who keeps talking about cocks," is all he says in response, picking the dirt out from underneath his nails. Soap, he needs to buy soap. Soap and toilet paper and new socks. People things, things anybody can buy. It's not that hard, not so bad. He's just living like anybody would.

Aside from running drugs for a gang, of course, but then the devil is in the details and Mello's always been a good Catholic boy.

Bert knocks him on the side of the head with the back of his hand, not overly rough, but it's more the principle of being shoved around by someone with a negative IQ and some big ideas for himself than anything else. Could be worse, of course, but still.

"Shove off with the lip, alright?" Bert says, more with the air of someone handing out advice than reprimanding. "You think that's going to get you far?"

"I think _I'm_ gonna get me far," Mello tells him. He pulls his gloves back on.

"Spirited little bastard, aren't you?"

Mello ignores him. Watson comes back out in the next moment, and Bert's expression shifts ever uglier. Watson doesn't even glance at him, just nods at Mello and motions for him to follow. He stands, barely resisting the urge to flip Bert off as he goes.

 

\---

 

"What do you mean? How'd he get sick?" Misa squeals into the receiver. L winces and turns it to speaker as Rem watches on, head stuck halfway through the wall. He wonders if it's uncomfortable, to fade into matter, or if, to a Shinigami, the human world is already an uncomfortable place to begin with.

"The same way anyone does, I'd assume," he tells her, leaning back against the wall, "unless there's some special godly caveat that no one's told me about."

Light is in bed, wrapped up in blankets now and mostly asleep, although he rolls around and groans and mumbles incoherent abuse at L every so often, which is at least evidence that he isn't too altered by his incapacity.

"Ryuzaki!" Misa snaps, the admonishment dressed up in pretty little breaths and frills of speech, but underneath that, he can tell that she's genuinely worried, which is something to her credit. She's like Light in some ways, but very unlike him in others, and this is one of them. She is so steeped in romance, in pretty affectations of love, that it feels less genuine than it probably truly is.

"He'll be fine, Misa-san," L tells her. "It's just a fever. He'll sweat a lot and be pale and sickly for a few days, but it will all turn out fine. I just need a few things - more bottled water, some extra blankets, - "

"Books," she says, in the same _eureka_ sort of voice that Archimedes surely used, "he likes books!"

"Books would be fine," L says.

"I have a shoot, but - whatever, I can cancel." He can hear the jingling of her purse, covered in charms and keychains as it is, in the background, off-shot of the hurried rush of her breathing.

"And the taskforce?" he asks,.

"I'll tell them Light has to stay home sick," she tells him sternly, "so don't get your hopes up. You're not going to use this as a chance to escape."

L sighs, glances over at Rem. He knows that well enough.

"I'm sure I wouldn't dream of it," he tells Misa. "Although I do have the key and Light's cellphone, so you'd better hurry up. Bye now." Her shock is audible on the other end, but he hangs up before she can go into hysterics. The line clicks off and, if he moved his fingers fast enough, he thinks he could probably -

But then Rem's skeletal hand is tugging the phone out of his grip, her eyes thin and wary, and his chance is gone. She holds the phone at arm's length, as if she's mildly disgusted by it, and the look she shoots him communicates the same impression.

"You should not have said that," she tells him dully. "She'll panic."

"She'd do that anyway," he huffs, slumping back into the wall. Light's breaths have gone even. He's flushed and pretty, even in sickness. L feels ill for wanting to touch his heated skin, to fetishize his pain, which is rather unreasonable, seeing as he has no qualms about it most days.

"You're not getting out," Rem says, and he doesn't doubt her resolve. It's clear she doesn't like Light, but she seems quite dedicated to carrying out his orders nonetheless. As soon as Light had passed out, L had gone for his phone, for the key, for the first chance of escape - he hadn't planned it that way, hadn't even really decided, it was just instinct; he'd seen the sky from the bottom of the well and he'd jumped, reaching for it - but Rem had stopped him, had taken away the ladder.

She looks like a wisp of ethereal decay, but she's solid, if only sometimes, and she'd had his wrist twisted between her bone-rot fingers before L had even so much as flipped on the phone, snatching the key out of Light's jacket with the other hand. It's a bit ridiculous, because he hadn't exactly taken her into account in his calculations - she's a god of death, why should she play their human games? - but it's become obvious that he should have. L's surety of his own possibility of escape may now have been no more than posturing, unless he can reason with her, which doesn't seem altogether very likely.

"You hate Light," he says, as less than a question, but it's still probing, and she looks at him as if she knows that.

"Yes."

He smiles a tight, lying smile. "What a coincidence, so do I."

She tilts her head the the side, and the thick tendrils of something that surely isn't hair move with her. "Do you think that I'm stupid?" she asks. She sounds annoyed, but then no more than usual. "That because I am a Shinigami I must lack understanding of human relationships? He puts himself inside you." She spits the words. The air around him spins with her presence, and it's not quite ghostly and it's not quite godly, but it's something thick and recognizable. Like death without the rot, without bodies and dirt and worms and thin spring mornings in a graveyard that smells like grass and petrol.

L scratches his head and glances over at Light.

"I put myself inside him sometimes, too, you know," he tells her, in what might be an attempt at levity but is probably just mindless, guilty floundering. He is guilty, in his way. "But that doesn't matter so much, when it comes to my job."

Rem's eyes tilt sideways, or look as if they do, and then she's moving very close to him, so close he thinks he should feel her presence - some kind of weight or heat or chill, the way you would with a person - but she is not a person and it's just empty air, only with a face that stares back at him.

"Would you kill him," she asks, "right now?" She looks at Light, sounds almost excited. "I wouldn't stop you. If you killed him, Misa would be free."

Ah, and that's what it is, isn't it? The girl. They always do it for the girl. "Misa is your stake in all of this?" he asks, not because he needs confirmation, but because he needs this angle, can use it. If he could just - just -

"I'm her Shinigami," Rem says.

"I see," L says, head titling to one side. "Not Light's?"

Rem gives a lifeless bark of something that might be derogatory laughter, and L takes that as confirmation. Which means that there must be another, which means that Rem isn't L's only chance at bargaining, isn't his only possible ally. If the other one hates Light as much as she does, perhaps he can -

"You're avoiding the question," Rem tells him, leaning in closer. Her eye blinks at him disparagingly. "Would you kill him, if you were promised escape?"

L glances at the door. This is a terrible question, very unreasonable, and he resents its being asked. "Misa will be here soon," he says.

"Avoidance," she snaps at him.

"Reasonable precaution." He pushes himself up slightly, even though their disparate sizes cannot be much accommodated for. "I know it probably doesn't make sense to a great and glorious god like yourself," he says, and the humor in those words is detectable, if not obvious, "but we humans, we're petty. Death isn't enough. Death is empty. I want defeat. I want to win." He looks at Light, curled and shivering under the blankets. He's flushed and L would still like to touch him and still sees the slightly unhealthy implications of such. "And, I want - I want him to realize that he's wrong."

Rem doesn't snort - he's not sure that she can - but makes a noise of relative equivalency. "And you want to continue to exchange bodily fluids with him."

L flicks his finger against Light's forehead, brushing his hair up and out of his eyes. "Yes, that, too."

"Typical. You humans are all alike." Rem doesn't look angry, not anymore than usual, and she slinks dourly back into the corner, phone and key still clutched in their respective hands. "And you're all in love with Light Yagami."

L wants to laugh, but doesn't. "Not all of us. I'm sure there's someone, somewhere who isn't. Maybe in Europe, or the US. You should check."

She glares at him. He lays his head down next to Light's, which is likely the antithesis of practical health, but he's so pretty and so imprecise in this moment, no longer a picture of studied glory, but a frazzled, messy human, just like the rest of them. He's shivering and groaning and surely hating his current existence, finally on level ground with everybody else.

Things get dim and dark and hazy, and he thinks he falls asleep before Misa gets there.

 

\---

 

She drops the supplies he'd asked for on the bed next to him, and not with particular kindness. He blinks up at her, trying to sort her face in his mind for a moment - it all fades out with sleep and suddenly he's not sure where he is and she's Wedy, poised over him with a hand on her hip; he almost winces for the nonexistent cigarette smoke - and she huffs and he blinks again and it's just Misa in pajamas, looking harried and disapproving.

"You scared me to death, you know," she says, shoving a stack of books into his lap and going over to tuck another blanket around Light. "I though you really might escape." L goes to reply, but she's not even looking at him anymore, lips pressed to Light's forehead. "Get better, okay?" she says softly, and it's strange how quiet and intimate it is. It's easy to forget sometimes, but she must really care for him, given all that she's been willing to do. She doesn't act like it, doesn't act like anything real, and it's easier to see her as an obnoxious prop than it is a human person, but if L does that, he's more like Light than he ever truly wants to admit to being.

"He'll be fine," L says, sitting up. His head feels heavy and he hopes she's brought coffee.

Misa brushes the strands of hair out of Light's eyes, hands soft and imprecise. "I should take him home, or to a doctor. He needs proper care," she says.

"I have medical training."

She shoots him a look that squeals just as indignantly as anything she ever says. "So do doctors."

L plucks at his lip. "Yes." The shadows are long in the room. There are no windows and the lamps are too cheap. It feels old here. He looks at Misa. "He'd rather stay with me," he tells her.

Misa looks at him, looks back at Light, and glares at both of them, though with very little true malice, and huffs, settling down into a chair at the bedside. That, of all things, is not what convinced her, and L realizes, rather suddenly, that she was always going to let Light stay.

They sit in silence for a few tiring minutes, Light occasionally blinking awake and mumbling and Misa trying to force feed him a bit of water, with it all ending in a slow, silent catastrophe. What do you do when everyone in the room vaguely hates everyone else?

What have they always done?

"You spoke to Rem?" L asks her after a while.

Misa nods. "She told me how you tried to escape as soon as Light collapsed. You probably would have just left him there on the floor if she hadn't stopped you, huh?"

"Probably."

That makes them both quiet. Light blinks awake a few minutes later, looks at them both with hazy, displeased eyes, drinks some water, and then goes back to sleep. L tells Misa to go home. Misa tells him that she can kill him anytime she wants. L scratches his neck. Misa examines her nails.

Eventually he takes back up the files for the Kaito Hidaka case - Light still insists on calling it that, despite Kaito Hidaka being an apparently innocent bystander, and L finds it difficult to commit to arguing such an irrelevant point, so it's more or less become the case's name - but he gets little work done with Misa staring at him with mild, resigned dislike through-out the course of it. It's almost an hour before he sighs and hands her a file.

"You can tell names from photographs, right?"

She looks at him cautiously, then nods slowly. "Yeah."

"Please take a look at the suspects listed on this page and tell me which, if any, are using fake names," he tells her, and adds, after a beat, "and don't kill any, mind you."

She stares at him. "You want my help on a case?" Her hair is back in a pony-tail, but there are strands slipping out of it, falling messy against her neck. She is a very pretty little thing, and although he understands Light's rationale to a certain degree, he thinks it's probably more fortunate for Misa to have attached herself to someone like Light than someone like L. They are both terrible people, in their ways, but then so is she, and Light is at least senseless and childish - he knows not what he does, no matter how precisely he measures the world. L is different.

L could take someone like Misa Amane apart bit by bit; L has before.

But she's staring at him wide-eyed and pretty now, just like her boyfriend will do, and - although the difference in age is not large - he feels oddly like some older man charged with looking after two enormously helpless children who are incapable of doing a thing for themselves.

So he looks at her as kindly as he knows how to look at anyone, and nods. "I'm sure you'll be much more helpful than Light. All he does is sit around and criticize my technique."

Misa's eyebrows go up and she softens for a moment, almost smiles. "Just on cases?" she asks. Yes, very pretty.

L could possibly force himself to smile back, but it strikes him as altogether too cruel, so he just nods again, if with something of a tired humor in his glance. "Yes, just on cases."

There is a moment of quiet, fortuitous mutual acceptance that disappears as soon as Light rolls over, groaning softly for, _"Ryuzaki,"_ and looking very pathetically ill. Misa glares at everything and nothing in particular, hunkering down over her file like it's some sort of prize that she's won. L drags his thumb along Light's chin and says, softly, "Ryuzaki's not here anymore."

The night takes a long time to become day, and Misa falls asleep with her head on Light's abdomen. L doesn't sleep at all.

 

\---

 

He feels it in him. Something hot and tearing and sick, and he can't tell it from himself, from his body or his bones. There's something cool on his face and it steams up his skin. "You're sick, Light," its voice says. "You're just sick, calm down."

_You're hurting me,_ Light thinks, and thinks he says it, and then he's blinking and L's leaning over him, eyes wide and shocked and he looks young, like a child, like their positions are reversed and Light thinks, _he'll go, he'll leave, I need to wake up and stand up or he'll get away,_ but he also thinks, mostly thinks, _you're hurting me._

There is water on his face and L's hands are clawing at him and he claws back and someone else is speaking and he says what he doesn't mean, which is, "Get off, get off."

Then there are no hands on him and the dim space grows patterns and he's staring at the ceiling and then the ceiling is staring back. Light is terrified for a moment, like that first instinctual reaction, the first day of a long and glorious companionship. He'd seen Death in his bedroom and he'd greeted him like a friend.

Death is floating above him now and he says," Hey Light, you're looking kinda rough."

And this is okay, this is his friend. This is who he is and this is what he owns and what he rules, and where is the Death Note, where is the Death Note? Kaito Hidaka is getting away, Kaito Hidaka came back from the grave that Light had put him in and slaughtered all the children, and they'll be more, there will always be more, bodies upon bodies upon bodies - and why do we do anything but burn the dead? Why make graves? There's not enough room in the ground and not enough room for the ash, either, all the ash in the world, and Light has to kill Kaito Hidaka again, and Light has to kill L. Light has to kill L and Misa, too, and Rem, and then it will be just him and Ryuk and a clean, safe world.

A world with only good people in it.

"Bring me the Death Note," he says, and he knows he says it, but the first few words fade out as he speaks them and the last two are the only ones that make it out into open air, but it's okay, it's okay, that's all that matters.

Ryuk keeps grinning. From somewhere to the side, Light hears L's quiet, unamused voice. "He's delusional, of course."

Of course. Of course of course of course - and what does _he_ know, really? He's a human being, with a human body, and he's never touched anything big or bright or glorious, he runs from beautiful things because he knows they will prove him ugly in comparison, and why, why of all of the people in the world - billions of people in the world, some of them must be good - why is it _L_?

Why does he have to own a thing that eats at his skin?

 

\---

 

They've turned the space heater back up, although Light flits in between being violently hot and wracked by shivers. Misa mostly sees to him, although she's constantly dropping things and making disgusted faces and flaunting her incompetence in a thoroughly unconvincing way. It's possibly endearing. He could possibly wish them well from this angle, but likely only because Light is passed out and his distaste for her is masked by that pretty, sleeping face.

L's half glad that Misa's here. If she wasn't, he doesn't know what he'd do. Probably strip Light and let him shiver and fuck him in his sickness. There's a frightening poetry in that image, and although in practice it would probably be less than enjoyable, the idea of it sparks something in him.

"Ryuzaki, he needs to go to a hospital," Misa tells him eventually. She might be right. They haven't got a thermometer but it's easy to see that his fever's high, too high, but then it hasn't been very long and in all likelihood he'll come out of it just fine.

There's a niggling part of L that's almost using this as a test. If Light kills himself with a fever, then good riddance. The world will be saved and L will be free and everything will work out. If Light dies then L gets himself back and the world resets and is made safe again. 

And if Light lives, then L gets Light.

It's a win-win sort of situation, except for the part where they all lose.

"If you take him," he tells Misa, "I'll likely escape while you're gone."

Her thin brows shoot down and she crosses her arms and she looks like 99 percent of her doesn't believe him for a moment, but there's always that voice, that little voice of weakness. "You won't," she says. "Rem won't let you." She sounds sure, but she's not.

"Ah, of course," L says, then goes quiet, quiet enough for her to think that's there's something hidden in his voice, the edge of a genius plan. Truth be told, he has none. His only possible avenue of escape is in Rem, and in order to get her to work with him, he needs to speak with her, and in order to speak with her, he needs to be alone. He might be better served to let Misa take Light, but then he might have been better served to let Light go a long time ago, and he hasn't yet.

It has to be a new game now. It used to be about the burden of proof, about catching Light out, proving his superior intellect by crushing one that possibly matches his own. That's over and done with. If he gets out, then he has enough evidence to convict, and if he convicts then the game is over and that's the end. They need a new game, so L will fashion one.

It's not enough now to crush Kira's empire. He has to crush the man - _god_ \- himself. He has to _make_ him understand, and in order to do that, he needs to be around him, as much as possible, as close as possible. Needs to crawl in when he's at his weakest and find the parts that will bend, the parts that L can carve his name into.

_L Lawliet._

They all know his name. It's rather freeing, in a way. He's got the noose around his neck, but no one is kicking out the chair from under him.

Misa shoves up her sleeves, rubbing her hands nervously along her arms and then shoving them back down. "I love him more than you, you know," she says. Her eyes blink pretty at him and he wonders what it would be like to be Misa Amane, how it would feel to be trapped under smooth skin and false smiles, a whole world standing up and clapping as she performs for them. And then he thinks, maybe, that he doesn't need to swap bodies to know the feeling well enough.

"You should go home," he tells her. The heat in the room is making his skin itch.

She slumps back, challenge unmet, looking as if she couldn't move if she wanted to. "I'm not going anywhere."

Light breathes thick and violent next to him, then subsides. L shifts, glancing back at the Kaito Hidaka files, then back at Light, says, "When he wakes, I'm going to fuck him. Would you like to stay and watch?"

Misa stops, startles, but quickly realigns herself, twirling a bit of hair around her fingers. "Yes," she says, meeting his eyes.

L thinks she, contrary and stumbling, is so like Light. He can't tell if it makes him like her or hate her more, only that the comparison is dug so deep into his perception of her that, in his eyes - loathe as he is to think himself that sort of blind, daily idiot - without her love for her darling lover, she would be less than what she is. Not by worth, but by sheer critical mass. Light weighs too heavy to leave no marks, and Misa is a thing made for marking.

The problem is that L is, too.

 

\---

 

Light wakes to L's hair scratching at his skin. He hates him very much in that moment, for how uncomfortable he's made everything, for how close he is, but then L's handing him a bottle of water and Light is gulping it down, sloshing some on his chest, but he doesn't care. His body feels worn, but in a strong, survivalist kind of way, like he's just run several marathons without noticing.

"How do you feel?" L asks. He's looking at Light with something curious in his eyes, something that wasn't there before. Light thinks he might be too exhausted to feel attraction, because otherwise that look would tingle along his skin and make him dizzy.

"Terrible," Light tells him. "What happened?"

"You got sick." L hands him the water bottle again and Light's not thirsty anymore, but takes a few more slow sips anyway.

"I know," Light says, even though it really only connects right then and he can recall the flashes - it hurt, it burned, he felt like he was being roasted alive and L was the one with blow torch. His body is still too hot, and he drinks deeper. "How did I get sick?" he asks, as if that's something L would know. It could have been the taskforce, someone at University, maybe -

"The man you slept with?" L suggests, so casually that they might as well be drinking buddies discussing Light's love life.

"Mikami," Light tells him, after a moment, deciding that he wants L to hear the name, wants him to know it and remember and feel sick with jealousy every time he thinks of it. The idea of any of that seems wildly unlikely, but Light wants it anyway.

L nods. "Right, him."

Then Light feels himself being shoved back into the pillows as L climbs on top of him, and Light wants to shout about the indignity, the cruelty, the heathen violence - just another reason why L is a bad, bad man, a man who rips things open - but his skin is so cool and Light's is so hot, and as he shoves his clothes away, pushing closer, it feel better than anything like this ought to.

Light's breath steams and he tries to think of a decent protest, but they're all silly, make him sound weak and young and victimized, and that might be the role he plays, but that's not what he is, not truly. As L draws his chilled hands along Light's ribs, up and around his back, pulling his close, Light roles his head to the side, plays bashful, and notices Misa, asleep in a chair on the other side of the room.

He freezes. "You can't - "

"She wouldn't mind," L murmurs, and then he's kissing him very softly and very heavily and Light's body is sinking down; he thinks he must be relapsing into sickness and he wants to cough on the violent breath that stirs up in him. He feels L's cock against his thighs, not as cool as the rest of him, but nothing to Light's slow-burn body temperature. His skin slides against L, and he smells like sweat, smells like something left out in the sea, and he needs a shower, he needs a change of clothes and clean sheets and to be out and away from L to where he can think proper thoughts instead of just jerking his hips in a slow, defeated rhythm and opening his legs.

He doesn't use a condom and that maybe should bother Light - because L's been everywhere, been had by everyone, is probably more diseased than most prostitutes, but then L is careful and L is good and L wouldn't do that to him.

Except no, that's all wrong, because there is nothing L wouldn't do to him, no hurt he wouldn't revel inflicting on Light, because he is cruel, and he is close and he is getting in too to fast, and then Light's back bends a little and he pretends he isn't choking down his voice - doesn't want Misa to hear but doesn't want to admit that - body opening for L like something owned instead of something that owns.

"You love me," L tells him, rolling his hips.

Light doesn't confirm or deny, doesn't need to, just grabs at the thin bones of L's back and grits his teeth and tries to smile, like this is all a joke, like this is their joke, but it comes out like a snarl and his lips are chapped and then L's kissing the corner of them, drawing a breath down his chin, reaching in so deep and clawing out his insides, and it's not fun, and not even really pleasurable in the right ways, but Light's body quakes and when L finally bothers to put his hand on him, to jerk him off, to give him something - it feels like scraps, like the barest hint of what he deserves - he cants and winces and spills across L's fingers, feeling drained and ruined immediately after, like L has infected him with a whole other sickness.

He lies back until L finishes, strokes along his shoulder with weak hands. Misa is still asleep, so that's something, and his body aches in a way that's too good to mind. "Bastard," he murmurs, and kisses L on the jaw.

 

\---

 

There's a raid.

Not on them - Watson's too good, and whoever's above him is good enough that Mello doesn't even know his name. But they're picking up from a certain supplier and, apparently, it's one that the cops have been closing in on for months. Watson tells him this while they're crouched under a table, warm breath whispering against Mello's ear, still tinted almost comical - just a big joke, the drugs, the police, all of it - by the smile that never quite drops out his voice, no matter the subject.

Mello breathes deep, tells himself that he's not going to die, that this isn't a big deal, that if L were under this table with him, he'd be just as bored and unconcerned as usual. That's the way to be, that's the only way to be. Mello keeps it up, even as they make a run for the back room, even as Watson's arm is grazed with a bullet and Mello has to half drag him out into the back-streets, down an alleyway and into a dumpster. They huddle there with the rats and the used needles and the week-old Indian food, until they're passed. The cops move in a neat line, one after the other, fast and professional. Mello hates them.

Mello works for justice, lives for it, even, but he hates those who can't manage it as well as him and these - these idiots, just doing what they're told, too blinded by orders to _think_ for a moment about what it is they're really after, really working for. Watson is bleeding all over Mello's new jacket and that's not justice, can't be even close.

"Come on," he mumbles, shoving the lid up after enough time has passed. The metal creaks and Mello vaguely considers vomiting. "Come on," he says, tugging Watson out after him, "we have to go, they'll - "

"Calm down, kid." His smile is less than usual, but just as clever. "Deep breaths and all that."

"I am calm!" Mello hisses, rolling off his glove and pressing it to Watson's arm, missing the actual wound a few times before he gets it right. Staunch the bleeding, staunch the bleeding, no one's going to die - it's just a flesh wound, it's just - 

Watson's neat fingernails are in Mello's hair then, tipping him back to look up, thumb dragging along his temple, and Mello doesn't think anything of it then. "Calm," he repeats. "Now, we're going to go back to mine and get out my first aid kit and my hot cocoa mix, and after I'm all healed up and you're good and warm, then you can panic all you like, alright?"

Mello nods. "Alright." Watson's hand is warm on his head. There is blood on both of their skin. He nods again. "Alright." Something moves thickly in the shadows - not a cop, not anything to worry about - and Mello reminds himself to take deep breaths and all that.

 

\---

 

Watson's flat is not what he'd expected, but then maybe he should have.

There are books everywhere. On shelves and on tables, on stacks on the floor, and covering most of the chairs. There's even a couple half balanced on a dying house-plant. The rooms themselves are small, and the floors are cold, and only half of the light switches work. Watson points him in the direction of the toilet, where Mello digs out the first-aid kit from behind mountains of loo books and brings it back.

He's done this before, if only in practice. Roger didn't like to entertain the notion of them having anything to do with gunshot wounds, but Watari had insisted, and set-up lessons for those interested on basic first-aid and, well, less basic first-aid. Mello can quote most strange medical study reports word for word, and describe the pictures in astonishing detail, too. He'd earned extra credit for that.

He patches Watson mechanically, hands still shaking. He says it's because of the cold. Watson just smiles like he doesn't believe him and nods to the thermostat. The heat goes up and Mello doesn't stop shaking. They both pretend that he does.

Mello makes cocoa for himself and tea for Watson, and listens to him talk, fairly undramatically, about his first ever gunshot wound.

"Was younger than you." Mello's eyebrows go up. "Had been in the business far longer, though. Was just a sprog when I got picked up by a nice man with a lot of money and a lot of drugs, in need of somebody small to do some small jobs for him."

"A regular Artful Dodger, huh?" Mello says. Maybe it's the books and maybe it's the shared life-threatening experience, but he's starting to feel a strange sort of affinity for Watson. He's not a role-model, certainly - Mello would sooner die than end up living this sort of life in this sort of place; not to mention the whole criminal thing - but he's easier to like than L has ever really been, and a better conversationalist besides.

"More of a Master Bates, really," Watson says, as Mello takes the kettle off of the stove. "Anyway, I was by myself more or less, and being as young as I was, when the cops found me out, they assumed I'd been caught in the crossfire and sent me to hospital, where, finding that I hadn't got any parents and hadn't for a long time, they put me into foster care. Now, the streets were a rough place, mind, but nothing compares to the hell that being passed round the tilt-a-whirl of social workers was, and as soon as I was healed enough, I fucked off out of there fast as I could. Though not before raiding the kitchen, of course."

Mello hands him his tea, shoving a stack of books to the side to make room for himself on the edge of an armchair, his own cup wrapped in between his fingers, warming his hands quickly. The heat spreads through him and his legs start to ache, adrenaline fading off to leave him wasted and dejected in its wake, but he feels strangely comfortable here, almost safe. He has to trick himself into sleep most nights, or else he'll waste away the night thinking, planning, falling into jittery, thankless stupors that he regrets in the morning - but right now, in the low orange light's of Watson's little flat, he feels as if he could drop right off with little effort.

"You're an orphan," he says, blowing softly across the top of his cocoa.

"Yeah, and what?" Watson asks, voice too retired to sound combative, but his accent makes it unkind, even if he doesn't mean it to be. He doesn't speak like the sort of person who's read all these books.

Mello shrugs. "Nothing," he says. There's a point of bonding there for them, somewhere, but Mello's got a goal to work towards and getting on isn't as important as getting the hell out of here. He shouldn't talk about his past or who he is or where he comes from, or even mention where he's going. He can't leave a mark. He doubts they'd come after someone so low down on the food chain, but better safe than sorry - and besides, he doesn't want L to know. If he - _when_ he finds him, Mello wants him to be proud, and working for criminals to achieve his ends isn't exactly going to earn him extra credit.

This is a chapter of his life that isn't going to make it into the autobiography. This is just downtime, a time-out from who he really is. Once he gets to Japan, it will all come back - the tests and the papers and the unending succession of grades by which he's measured his life thus far. He will be who he is again. He will be someone.

For now, he just drinks his cocoa and stays quiet.

Drunken laughter echoes from the streets below. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and Watson grunts at him to use a napkin. He goes over to the kitchen and pulls a few out of the bag, but doesn't use them, just traces his eyes across the spines of the books stacked haphazardly in the dish-cupboard. "Hey, do you mind if I read one of these?" he calls back into the front room.

"Read yourself silly," Watson mumbles back, standing, "but damage any of them and I'll break all your fingers." Mello freezes where he is, rapidly reconsidering, before Watson snorts and glances at him over his shoulder. "I'm taking the piss, lad. Have at it."

He nods at the shelf and Mello grabs the first book that looks vaguely interesting, too uncomfortable to deliberate much. He moves back to the front room and his overcrowded chair as Watson pulls open a very scratched-up and decrepit looking laptop with his undamaged hand.

"You can take the bedroom, if you like," he offers, without looking up. "I've work to do and kiddies like you need quite a bit of sleep, don't they?"

Mello shrugs. "I'm fine," he says, cracking open the first page, fingers tracing over the words. It doesn't even have to be a particularly good book, he doesn't care, just the sensation of reading is comforting. He's barely been scraping together enough to make rent and buy food, and books have lately become luxuries he cannot afford. Watson's got a veritable library here, though, and this isn't the sort of place he'd particularly mind staying. 

Maybe he can mention how he's an orphan, appeal to whatever's sympathetic in Watson, and swing himself an invite. Rent will be one less expense that Mello has to subtract from his Tokyo fund, and Watson's not half bad, anyway. Mello's not one for extraneous company, but Watson's a little like Matt in the way that he takes up such a small amount of space, half the time you can forget he's there.

Mello barely makes it past the first chapter before his eyes drop closed, and he doesn't even force them back open. For the first time in months, it feels okay to sleep. 

 

\---

 

If he dreams, it's all a scuffle, too twisted up with memories and thoughts and the echoing shouts from the streets below to come to anything coherent, and he wakes not thinking of the rolling tide in his head so much as the weight spread across him. He tries to sit up, neck aching from the position he'd slept in, and can't.

Then he feels it.

"What - "

A hand comes up, knocking softly into his chin, and his belt buckle clinks and he can feel his trousers pooled around his thighs - and he doesn't need to ask, not really. He knows what.

He blinks up at Watson and he can't think quite straight for a moment, thoughts veering off in different directions and is this really happening? This can't really be happening. This kind of thing doesn't happen. He'd know. He'd get fair warning. It wouldn't happen to him. He tries to speak and a palm comes up to cover his mouth, the rest of the body pressing his firmly down, keeping him pinned, and what is this? _What is this?_

"That's a boy." The words warm his neck all at once and for a moment he can't even tell where they're coming from, even thought Watson is right on him, is right there, it feels like they're coming out of a vacuum. A person wouldn't do this to him, it's just circumstance, Watson wouldn't - "Shhh."

Mello watches his mouth move and then all at once he's kicking out, bucking wildly and shoving his elbows up. _Go for the eyes_ , L had told him once. _You're small. Work to your advantages. Speed over strength, and always go for the eyes._ He doesn't know how he recalls the memory so clearly now when he hasn't thought particularly of it in years. It's one of the few things L's ever said directly to him that Watari didn't put him up to, and, as a child, Mello had treasured it for that reason alone. Then he'd gotten older and had become too cool to treasure anything.

He goes for the eyes. His thumbs jam up, one arm snaking out from under Watson, but he misses by less than an inch, colliding with the bridge of his nose instead, and without enough force to do any proper damage. Then his wrist is grabbed, bent awkwardly into the same hand as his other, and he feels so small. Had Watson always been so much larger? So much stronger? Had Watson always…

_"He put his cock in you yet, or are you saving that honor for me, princess?"_

Oh god. Ohgodohgodohgod. "Get off," he shouts, and his voice sounds panicked, too panicked. He scrambles, feet kicking, body jerking wildly and then there's a hand in his hair and his head's being jerked back and he can't, he can't -

"Calm down, lad," Watson says softly, casually. He doesn't even sound winded. Mello can hear the usual smile tinging the edges of his voice. "You're going to hurt yourself."

As if this is him, his fault. As if his trousers aren't slipping down to dig into the backs of his knees, and, oh god, he's fucking - he can see - there's a hand on his thigh, and what the fuck is that? What - he's never even - why is he _doing this?_

_"Best be on your guard, or he might slip you it without you even knowing."_

Oh fuck, oh Christ, oh Jesus fucking - no, no, no - the hand on his thigh keeps moving, upward, upward, and he's a good Catholic boy, his mother always used to say so, and he never ought to take the name of the lord in vain, but _Jesus fucking Christ_. "Get the fuck off me," he tries to shout again, but it all whooshes out on a breath and doesn't sound half as strong as he intends it to, "get off, get off, don't - you fucking bastard, don't you dare!" The hand and his hair jerks him hard and he feels the sob catch in his throat and he doesn't care, he doesn't care. "Get off! I'll fucking kill you! I swear I'll fucking - "

The palm across his face hits hard and he can feel the mark fading into his skin, but he doesn't care, he doesn't care. That fucking bastard.

_"I think I'd fucking notice."_

Of course he fucking would. Of course.

Watson's shifting his position - a better angle, probably; of course, of course - and Mello wonders if he'll be killed if he fights and wonders if he'll be killed anyway, but none of that really factors into his motivation for jamming his knee up into Watson's crotch, hitting at a decent enough angle for him to grit his teeth and choke down a howl, but he wonders anyway. There's only a split second for him to move and maybe he should kick Watson again, really give it to him, but he just scrambles off the chair, moving as fast as he can to get up, just get away, get away.

He knocks into a stack of books and his trousers are still around his knees and when he's tackled to the floor and pressed down face first, he's only vaguely shocked, but more dully, shakily resigned, even as he struggles and yells, biting his tongue with the force of his words, scorching his throat with the intensity of his voice. He screams, he's screaming and his body is moving too fast, like it's been switched into a different gear, but it all feels like it's going far too slow. He feels like he's underwater, like this a dream and he's watching from a bird's-eye-view above, an uninvested observer.

He is a movie that's been played over and over, one he's seen so many times that he can map all the movements and speak all the words in time, knows every beat before it happens.

This is a thing that happens all the time. He's pressed face-first to the floor, but it's not unusual. It's in the papers often enough, and L has solved these sorts of cases if they're widespread enough or if a few bodies pile up with them. But this - just this, this moment where he is shaking like a rabid animal and Watson is pinning his wrists to his back, one hand trailing along his thigh, whispering, "Calm, lad, calm. You're not such a bad kid, are you? No, no," in such an unremarkable, gentle, smiling voice - this moment is nothing.

In the grand scheme - and that's what it's all about, that's what L deals in and Mello is aiming to deal in - in the grand scheme, this might as well not be happening.

Then Watson's pressing awkwardly against his spine and he can feel him, can feel _it_ , and he feels woozy and distant and like he wants to pause the film and this is not happening, _this is not happening_ , and he wishes Matt were here in a far, far removed part of his mind, not that he'd want Matt to see him like this, but it's just such a big, strange, horrible event and it feels like something Matt should be here for.

And then -

_And then_ -

The floorboards creak but barely anything else moves and then the warm, solid, gutting weight of Watson's body is gone and there's an aborted breath and something like a yell and Mello's falling forward onto his elbows, trying weakly to push himself up, when he feels a splash of something heavy, warm and wet across his back. _Semen_ , is his first thought, in a very detached, clinical way, but it's not - it doesn't smell right.

He rolls over slowly, movement suddenly stilted and he knows he'd been afraid of this whole situation, been panicked and frantic, but the whole room feels different now, atmosphere shifted sharply to the other end of the scale. It's cold and dark and frightening, like a horror movie has walked in on him. Mello pushes himself up, turning around to try to see where Watson's gone, but a very silent part of his mind already almost _knows_. The shadow at his back, like a guardian angel.

He blinks up, eyes adjusting properly to the low light, and stares at L and L stares back - made of familiar shapes; white and blue and black, thin arms and skeptical eyes and - and for a moment, Mello almost believes it.

Then L's stance shifts and he's not L anymore, not anyone Mello's ever seen before, maybe not even a human being. Maybe not even real. Maybe none of this is. He's standing there, bent awkwardly over Watson's limp, heavy body that's collapsed half on the chair. There's something thick and dark dripping from his mouth, down his chin and onto the flimsy material of his shirt. The man who is not L has a knife and he has a grin and he's really nothing at all like L, actually, switching to a stranger in one quick, stilted second.

Mello tries to sit up and realizes that his trousers are still undone, leaving him bared and weak.

The man smiles and tilts his head at him, and drops Watson's body to the floor, moving over to crouch down next to Mello and do up his zipper and button with sharp, quick fingers and a jag of a smile. Mello can't move. This isn't happening, this probably isn't happening - but if it is, if it _is_ -

"Little boys like you should be in bed at this hour," Beyond Birthday says to him, in a voice that sounds like gravel under a tire and tinkling, silvery things.

Mello blinks, stutters for a moment, then - for lack of anything else to do - punches him squarely in the jaw. Then he starts screaming again.

 

\---

 

Light is cool with sweat and he smells like a hospital. Like flesh.

Misa is still asleep in her chair and one of her pajama legs is rolled up at the end and he can see a thin strip of shadowed skin, bare and smooth in the dark. He doesn't know what time it is or how many days it's been since he'd come here. Since he fucked Teru Mikami and then came to L and lay down on the ground before him. One of them was always a sacrifice but he can't tell which it is anymore. Maybe both. Maybe they're each a respective offering to a respective god. Maybe Light isn't the only thing in the world; maybe he's half of something.

No - no. That's ridiculous. That's something you'd write in a mass-produced greeting card. That's something he'd say out loud but not ever really think. His thoughts aren't his own anymore. Ever since L tripped in on pallid feet he's been tangling up in Light's wires. He's so tangled up now that if Light wanted to be rid of him, he'd have to cut him out. Like a parasite buried under the skin. He'd have to _cut_.

His fever's broken and he feels weak from it, but in a sated, happy way, like after a day of vigorous exercise. L presses a room-temperature hand-towel to his head that might have been cool and soothing at some point. His wrist is bent in on itself and he moves lazily, like Light is a fixture he has to wipe down but doesn't particularly care about the cleanliness of.

It smells like a hospital.

"You really shouldn't have sex with people who are barely conscious," Light says to him, sinking down into the pillows even though they're heavy with the feel of his sickness.

He's too tired to change the sheets. He doesn't even have a change of sheets. He'd only bought the one set. His mother had always done this sort of thing for him before and it had never occurred to him to buy two sets of sheets, but that's what people do, right? You put on one set while you wash the other, or else you'll have no sheets for a few hours. It's so simple, but mystifying in a vague way that must have something to do with his sickness. L is still pressing the towel to his forehead, his cheek, but Light wishes he'd just use his bare hands instead.

He doesn't respond, is barely looking at Light when he shifts to drop a file on his chest. It lands off-center, hits so softly it could be nothing. "Hiroshi Ono"

Light's mind rolls around the word, waiting for the click, but it doesn't come. He opens his eyes. He doesn't know who L's talking about. He looks down at the file on his chest, then to the side at L, who's studiously unwrapping a selection of small, brightly colored lollipops, back bent awkwardly as he lines them up over his pages of notes. L watches the line of his jaw. It's jerking almost imperceptibly, and Light realizes he's counting quietly under his breath.

He looks down at the file again, sitting up to crack it open. Several unflattering photographs of a middle-aged man with a wide chin and small, bright eyes falls out, along with some printed stats and a few crumpled, coffee-stained notes. L's thin, scrawling penmanship loops across the page. He writes in English and Light wishes he wouldn't, but he drags the pads of his fingers across it anyway, feeling the indentations of the pen.

Then he reads the words. _Hiroshi Ono_. Early fifties, unmarried, and unremarkable in every way. Just a regular salaryman.

Light glances back up at L. "He did it?" It's not even been a week and L hasn't left this room; he's good, but he's not that good. "You can't know - "

"He's my number one suspect," L says, lining up his lollipops so that they're all facing the same way. Then he picks one up and drops it in his mouth, teeth knocking against the sticky surface with a series of small clicks. "It's just a hunch, so I could be wrong, but 9 times out of 10 my hunches are correct." He slides his eyes over to Light and smirks without twitching a muscle. "Case in point."

Sitting up further seems like a lot of work, so Light just slumps down into the pillows, resting his forehead haphazardly against L's shoulder and smiling with his voice. "Should I bring him here so you can fuck the truth out of him?" he asks, harsher than he means to, but then he feels harsh, rather suddenly.

L doesn't care about justice, doesn't care about truly saving anyone. He just wants to win. He's just doing a job.

"Just send an anonymous tip to the authorities, if you could," he tells Light, nudging him slightly to the side, like the physical closeness is causing some sort of intellectual strain. He's lining up his lollipops again, setting the sticks straight, and he keeps lining them no matter how straight they get. "I want to see what they'll turn up."

Light lifts himself from L's arm, wants to frown but doesn't quite. There was a moment of closeness there, thin and strung out and the reason for all of this, really - L brings moments like that with him everywhere, brings them out when you least expect them - but it's gone now.

"Not your type?" Light says.

L crunches his lollipop. "I'm sure I don't have a type."

Light draws patterns just above his skin, almost touching his arm but not quite. "I'm pretty sure your type is me."

L looks at him then and Light makes sure to sit up more fully, putting his body weight on one hand so that he's not thrown off-balance when he leans forward and kisses L on the edge of his jaw. L bears it like something he has to suffer rather than something he revels in, and it's strange how he can switch so easily - pressing Light into the pillows one moment and barely taking notice of him the next.

He huffs, blowing his hair out of his eyes with a stoic impatience. "I don't even like you very much," he tells Light, but his voice lightens and he sounds almost kind again, a stilted condescension.

Light watches the bones at the top of his spine shift under the skin as he leans forward, and realizes, all in one moment, that L is humoring him. That L is always humoring him. He wants to snap his neck and he wants to bury him underground, with the dirt and the worms, and he wants to watch him burn up in a whirl of flames and charred flesh and suffering. Light is not a thing to be humored; L is not a thing high up enough to even be able to lower himself, but he glances at Light out of the corner of his eyes like that's just what he's doing.

_L Lawliet._

_L Lawliet L Lawliet L Lawliet L Lawliet._

He wishes he'd never learned the name. It's so tempting and his fingers itch for a pen. The name has made L's death too easy and that is something that is not allowed to be easy. That is something that everyone will suffer with, if it happens. _When_ it happens. If, when - he doesn't know, can't decide. His plans keep breaking down, being reestablished, then breaking down again. L keeps breaking things.

Light doesn't pull L around by the hair, even though he could, just speaks to his sharp shoulder.

"I killed Aiber and Wedy," he says. The words are a part of Light, but suddenly they're outside of him and he doesn't know quite how they got there. They sound quieter and less important than they maybe should, but L still freezes, still and solid, where he sits. "I couldn't get Watari's name, but their's were easy enough," Light continues casually, "right there in the system. The system I would never be able to hack, remember?"

He turns his most charming smile on L, and even though he's still drained in some ways, there's a jagged lightening to the world in that moment, and he realizes that things aren't quite so bleak as L knows how to make him think. The world is open and the world is large and, most importantly, the world is his.

Light is justice, and L is Light's and everything will be alright, perhaps.

L still hasn't moved. He doesn't turn, doesn't look at Light.

"You're lying," he says after a moment, like it's a conclusion that he's settled on after much studious consideration, rather than the panicked, desperate attempt that it is. Light smirks to himself and maybe L can hear it because he turns his head very slowly in the next second.

"No," Light says, lips quirking. It's such a beautiful moment. He wishes he had a camera. Misa is stirring, making soft sounds that drift slow across the room. L is still so, so still. He looks at Light with very calm eyes and says, for a second time, "You're lying."

Light just shakes his.

Then it hurts.

His breath grunts out of him and the pressure sparks up, curling under his ribs, jamming into the flesh and _twisting_ with a rabid vehemency that has him doubling over, arms wrapping around his abdomen to shield it, desperately grappling to get L's hand _off_ , off, away - just get it off - just -

It _hurts_.

His eyes are watering and he doesn't know what's happening, only that something slams into his shoulder and there are suddenly feet by his head and a flat surface against his back.

"Light! Light, oh my god!" Misa's voice is too sudden and loud and it echoes hollowly in his head. "Ryuzaki, _stop!_ " 

Light tries to sit up but his head is still fuzzy and his limbs ache with a sort of nausea and it feels like there's something wriggling around under his skin, something with _teeth_. L says something and Light hears the words but they don't go together properly, he can't make sense of them - they're just two syllables floating around inside of his head as Misa screeches impotently.

"Now," and, "Rem," L says, and Light tries and he tries - and then suddenly L moves off the bed, steps over Light's body and goes further than he should be able to and it all rather clicks into place. _"Now Rem,"_ L had said and Rem's done something - traitor, traitor, of course she's a traitor - and L is free, chain gone from his wrists and how is that possible? How is this happening?

L doesn't turn, doesn't even say goodbye, and as Light pushes himself up and tries to stop the room spinning, he can see Misa thrashing around in Rem's hold, yelling so wild, too _loud_ \- "Why are you doing this? Rem, how could you do this to me? You said, you said…" - and L is unlocking the door, is turning the key, and how is that fair, how is that a part of the plan? How is this going to help anything?

L is walking away, L is getting away, and Light barely feels like he can stand, let alone chase him, and he's already disappearing down the hall, he's already gone. Misa's still shouting and maybe crying and Rem just holds her, stoic and unconcerned, as if she's not even here at all, and that's when Light sees it. It's sticking out of Misa's purse, one of several sheets. Some of them are written on, some aren't. Light reaches out, without really deciding to, and picks one up.

He grabs one of her mass of gel pens and the letters are so easy, so simple. He feels like he's written it a hundred times before, like it's traced into his skin somewhere. He can't even see L anymore, he could be out the door at this point. His fingers ache with it, but this was always an experiment that could be ended at any moment and a big part of him always more or less knew it would end up something like this. There is a scale, somewhere, and it's wavered for a while, but things eventually always come down in favor of the world.

His brave new world.

_"Is it beautiful yet?"_

His arm aches to move, but he quickly scrawls L Lawliet across a loose page of the Death Note anyway.

 

\---

**tbc.**

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "wow Jaye (that's my name, jsyk), I'm really glad you decided to write your fic this way instead of writing it in a way that makes actual sense and isn't dumb as hell," said no one ever. writing is hard, you guys. It's like, I want to make a thing go a certain way and then if goes in the exact opposite way and I just stand there shrugging. that's literally my writing process.
> 
> okay, couple of things - 1) this is not the last chapter. not even close. 2) don't break out the pitch forks and torches just yet, kay? 3) I think think the whole 'you can always trust someone who likes books' trope is way too overdone in fiction. well-read people can be rapists, too. 4) stay tuned for the adventures of Mihael Keehl and Beyond Birthday! wee!
> 
> if you review I will giggle and squeal and kiss your face. thank you all for reading, regardless.


	13. heart attack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, it's me again! I know, I know, I'll fuck off in just a second but some things first: apologies that this chapter took about three weeks (?) to get out, which is about twice as long as it would ideally take. I'm lazy and constantly struggling with this bad boy and nervous that you'll all hate me after this chapter, anyhow, but here it is. Some things are explained but not very well. and look, I'm typing my notes with proper capitalization this time around. Who knew I could do that?
> 
> So, the quote at the top of this chapter is not from a book this time, but a webcomic. Or quasi-webcomic. It's called a softer world and if you haven't already heard of it, you ought to go look it up. When I started writing this I had just finished up Moby Dick, which is a goldmine of brilliant quotes that really resonated with this story, but after I used up all the really good ones, I was mostly just scrambling to find applicable literary quotes out of some sense of propriety? Which is kind of silly when it comes to, you know, gay porn, so I'm just throwing my hands up and going with whatever quote is pulling my heartstrings, and this story along, at the moment, be it literature or a line of poetry or even a lyric. Yeah, I may do the lyrics thing. I figure if you've made it this far into this mess, you're not going to be thrown out by that, of all things. ANYWAY, onto business.
> 
> Thank you, as always, to the utterly shocking amount of people who reviewed last chapter. I have no idea what I did to deserve that much sweetness and praise (and only one or two death threats!) but I'm utterly grateful for all of it. It made me so happy! Oh, and this chapter is dedicated to diabolicaltheory1 for sending me the kindest PM and encouraging me to actually get this finished and posted. ecstatic love for you!

_"'Make love, not war!' is an unrealistic demand. What we need is a hybrid."_  
\- a softer world, 978

 

\---

 

"You look better in black," L tells him, hands running along his abdomen, straightening the creases out of his shirt. Light can feel the joints in his fingers, can feel the stutter and jerk of his movements, strange and imprecise but almost pretty, once you get used to them.

"God doesn't wear black."

He straightens his tie and it's red, red like his high school tie had been. He looks at his arms, at the slacks that L's pawing at, adjusting the way they rest on his hips. Khaki. He's wearing his high school uniform. He looks back at L, who's grown dimmer somehow, like he's less there than he had been. Light hadn't known him before college, had only seen the letter on the screen, had only known the big, daunting presence of the great detective L. There hadn't been anything more than that.

Lind L. Taylor. He'd tried to kill him back then, too.

_Too?_

Light is wearing his school uniform and suddenly L is gone and Light is on the floor and the world shudders, the aftereffects of some sort of natural disaster shaking the foundations. It's been forty seconds. It must have been forty seconds.

He hears a soft thud from several rooms over. And then -

And then. What? What now?

Misa's stopped yelling but Light can hear her sniffling. She's afraid. Light takes her fear and makes it his own because he has nothing of his own at the moment. It's very painless. He's just killed L and it's all very painless. There's something wrong with that, or maybe something very right about it. Maybe if he had just done this from the start…

"Quiet." Rem's voice is very loud in the room.

The space heater has been turned off and Light's thankful for that. He's burning up now. He's skin is prickling, chafed by the air. His body feels wrong, like it's not his body, like he shouldn't have one. The floor against his chest is rough, a solid presence, but he can't tell if he's touching it or not. The world tingles at the end of his fingerprints and L is dead in the next room and nothing. Nothing else.

Maybe he should close the door and lock it.

"Quiet, Misa," Rem says, but Misa sniffs and Misa steps on heavy feet and Misa is not quiet. Misa always takes orders, but she never does what she's told. She is not a girl who has ever done what she's told. The ground shivers as she walks to him. Light is still on the ground. He feels too faded to be feverish. He's not here. He's not here.

L is dead in the next room. Very quietly.

"Light, what's going on?" Misa asks, kneeling down beside him. He feels the heat radiate from her hand as she holds it above his head, too afraid to touch. _Go ahead,_ he thinks. _You have permission, just this once. Go ahead._ "Shouldn't we - " she starts, "should I go after him?"

She's talking about L. Why is she talking about L? How could _she_ of all people think that she could talk about L?

She doesn't touch him. Light feels like a statue that's been knocked over. She doesn't touch him and suddenly he doesn't want her to, can think of nothing more unsettling than the thought of her hands on him. Her tiny fingers. Her black painted nails.

_"God doesn't wear black."_

Oh, that's a good one. That's just such a good joke. The punchline is somewhere around here. The punchline is dead in the next room.

He stands up on shaky legs and when Misa goes to help him he shrugs her off with a vehemence he can't quite control. He feels dizzy and he doesn't know when he'd last eaten and he wants to be wild and feverish again, even though his sickness is gone. He can feel it gone - just drained out him. L had pressed a towel to his face and Light still wants to kiss him. There's a piece of paper on the floor, but he doesn't look at it. Misa keeps asking questions - "Do you want me to send Rem after him? Do you want me to get you some water? Do you want - "

The needle could stand to be cleaner, but she'll survive it just fine. He stabs it into the side of her neck in one quick movement and her eyes go wide but not surprised. He's been nothing but a betrayal to her from the start. She'd be better served finding some nice man with an intellect roughly equivalent with Touta Matsuda's, riding off into the sunset in a carriage of dreams and all that rot. A June wedding. She could wear flowers in her hair. She falls to the ground with a thud - there was a thud from the other room, he can still feel it shaking the floor - and Rem could probably have caught her but she doesn't.

She watches Light with her one jagged eye and Light knows, should have known all along. Always the traitor.

"You gave him the keys," he says, unsteadily. He needs to sit down, he needs to be still. Misa's position can't be comfortable, but he doesn't care. He grapples himself into her vacated seat - the chair he'd had her buy cheap from a going-out-of-business sale. Two of the legs are loose and it groans unsettlingly with any weight that's placed on it.

He feels like he might decay on the spot, but also like his skin is clean for the first time in a long time. He can think straight. He can see the world as it is. 

"Yes," Rem says.

Ugly. There is a deep brown discoloration at the corners of the baseboards, where the metal sticks out unattractively. There is dirt under his fingernails. Everything rusts and rots and dies eventually, everything in the world is breakable and there is no use trying to keep it whole. _There is a mirror and there is a vase and it - it shatters._

No. No.

There is dirt under his fingernails and he latches onto it, suddenly convinced that the only proper way to get anything in order, to make the world right again, is to get it out. Clean. Everything has to be clean. L is always dirty, never showers as often as he should.

Is. Present tense.

"Why?" he says, stopping for a moment. "Why would you do that?" He looks up at Rem and she looks down at him and it's a look that's wrong on her. Pity. She pities him. He hates that and his stomach twists and she's nothing, really - Misa will never love her, could never; Misa loves him. L loves him. Everyone loves him. He's God. "Why?" he asks again, because she's not responding and he can't tell how long it's been, moment to moment nothing more than a frazzled buzz of nerves and the tick of his watch. What times is it? Misa's still on the floor.

"It was a test," Rem says.

What? What does that mean? He hears the words but they don't fit together properly. They give you tests in school, people test things to make sure they're working properly - aptitude, functionality, the state of being _testy_ \- but L left and L ran and how does any of this make any sense? This feels like a fantasy, like something he'd think about while palming himself through his slacks, imagining L to be -

L is in the other room.

"He wanted to see what you would do." Rem is moving closer to him and Light can't decide whether to be disgusted or grateful. She is a god, in her way. "How you would react." Rem looks at him and then to the paper on the floor, _L Lawliet_ looped across it in uneven penmanship. "I guess he saw."

Light stands. He stands and he's standing there when Ryuk fades in through the wall behind him, grin leaking something perverse onto the scene - as if it wasn't already there. Misa's on the ground and Rem is a beastly, hulking presence and Light is standing. Light is standing.

Ryuk laughs and he keeps laughing. He can feel the tiny pulse of his watch as the seconds tick by. More than forty. Far, far more than forty.

Mikami, he thinks. Mikami in a white t-shirt and jeans. It could be so easy. Just a little twist, a little chafing bend of reality and there really wouldn't be a difference. There really wasn't anything so irreplaceable in L that can't be cultivated in someone else. Humans are formed by experience, by circumstance. If the soul is there, it is simply an un-carved block cast into the world to be made human only by suffering. The tides roll in and the water wears at it and eventually, maybe, there's a person there at the end of it all.

Light is hands and strong fingers and a neck and eyes that practice smiling into the mirror and smooth silky hair and a voice, a voice that people listen to when it speaks. He is a name. Moon Night God. Light. Yagami. They're just parts of a whole. He is calves and he is khaki and he is that tiny, screaming, rabid thing that thrashes in his chest, that says _this is all wrong_. There is paradise somewhere beyond these walls, but you have burned it and you are burning. The torch is lit. Little boys have their livers carved out. Violence takes you and it paints the walls. Time moves too slow or else too fast and everybody goes to work and everybody collects their paycheck and everybody pretends to fall in love because the enormity of their singularity is terrifying. Light is eyebrows and lips and feet that blister in his running shoes on the tennis court.

Light is mostly names, and mostly other people's names. Light is Kaito Hidaka and Korou Otohara and Naomi Misora and more and more and more and the world over. The world shivers in his hands. Light is the Death Note. Light is death and Light is God and Light is the _killer_ that they all call him.

And Light is L, in some ways. Light is sometimes more L than Light is himself. Sometimes there is no such thing as Light Yagami, only Kira and L. Only larger than life beautiful things.

Ryuk is still laughing. Light is still standing. L is still in the other room and Light steps one foot in front of the other, because he'll have to do something with the body.

His bare feet stick to the cheap linoleum as he moves into the hallway. The walk feels shorter than usual, maybe because most of the time he's going the other way, antsy to get to L, L tied up and packaged tight for him. Like a pet, a prized hound. L did warn him. This was always a terrible idea and things were always going to end with somebody's blood soaking somebody else's hands. He should breathe, he should get over it.

He moves to the hall, and to the small room connecting it.

It's really not that big a deal, if he puts it into proper perspective. People die all the time, every day. Death is just as human as anything people do, if not more so, and the wheel needs to keep turning and the stars need to -

L is in the next room. L is curled up on the bare grey carpeting, thumb to his mouth, head tipped limply to the side. "Took you long enough," he says, shifting into a more watchful position. "I thought you'd died in there or something. Misa has stopped shrieking anyway, so I suppose I should just count my blessings."

Light doesn't -

Light doesn't.

L is in this room. L is looking at him like he's gone crazy.

Light can't - there is too much in him, swirling around, making tornadoes, making him sick, and all that really registers at this point, above all the scattered, contradicting questions and thoughts and demands and pleas and prayers and wild hope, is -

_Oh thank fuck._

 

\---

 

"Ow," Beyond Birthday says.

Because Mello once heard a story. Mello sat awkwardly on a sofa with L curled up across from him, picking at pastries and mumbling somewhat uninterestedly about an FBI agent named Naomi Misora and a girl with her eyes removed and lots of little Japanese dolls. Lots of symbolism. Lots of psychosis. Mello had taken notes. L had rolled his eyes.

"You should be able to retain information of this level of detail without any aide. Real life doesn't always allow you a pen and paper," he'd said, and then dropped a fruit tart straight into his mouth.

Mello remembers the scratchy feel of the pillows at his side, the rock that had been stuck in his shoe that he'd been too nervous to shake out. "Fuck off," he should have said. Should have had some goddamn backbone. Matt had said so - or, Mello had said so, and Matt hadn't contested it. Probably hadn't even been conscious at the time - three in the morning and the two of them spread out on the bedroom floor with chocolate and cigarettes and all the necessities. "Fuck off," he should have said.

He'd just apologized and set his notepad aside. L had snorted, as if he'd expected as much and looked down on him for it - which hadn't been fair, hadn't been fair at all. He'd said so after. "L is never fair," Roger had told him, with an unassuming glance and a tap of his pen.

But Mello had heard a story. He hadn't taken many notes and he doesn't remember most of the names or the dates exactly - that's why he's not number one, maybe; Near has a photographic memory and how is that fair, how is any of this fair? - but he remembers one name.

Beyond Birthday.

He'd heard it before. Wammy's loves a good ghost story and Beyond Birthday is the best ghost, even better than A. Grady, the groundskeeper's son, had half the intelligence of a Wammy's House two-year-old, but he'd still told a damned good scary story. True stories, he'd said. Beyond Birthday was the kind of boy who tore wings off of butterflies, the kind of boy who could stay very still and quiet for hours and hours in order to get the butterflies to land in his hand. A boy who no one blinked twice at when he came home with blood in his mouth and dirt on his hands, always climbing trees and killing things and laughing quietly. Always following L around like a rabid animal who'd chosen himself an owner.

Beyond Birthday is a legend. Beyond Birthday is a murderer. Beyond Birthday is in prison.

"Ow," Beyond Birthday says. Mello had hit him hard, but not hard enough, and it's barely a glancing wound. Beyond Birthday shrugs it off. Beyond Birthday knees Mello in the stomach and then shoves him over, and Mello watches the ground twirl in unquiet patterns around his head.

"That didn't really hurt," Beyond Birthday continues, tapping his cheek as he leans over Mello, sharp-tooth leer splitting his face, "but it's the principle of the thing, isn't it? You can't just go around hitting people, especially people who've just preserved your chastity for you. Or did you want him in you? It's okay. They tell you wrong things, but it's okay to want to be raped. It's okay to want to die. It's okay to want your fingers ripped off one by one."

Mello can't breath. It's like before. It's like Watson all over again, except Watson's slumped against the leg of a side-table, a stack of books collapsed across him. Some are split open and the pages shift and bristle in the breeze from the open window. The window is open. Beyond Birthday came in the window and Beyond Birthday killed Watson and how did that happen? How does this make any sense? Beyond Birthday is a story he'd heard once, twice, a few times, but Mello has lived a whole life without Beyond Birthday coming in windows, so why has he started doing it now? Why is he balanced on top of Mello, hips straddling the middle of his chest, wide, wild eyes staring back down at him.

And sharp, sharp teeth.

"Get off me," he says, because those teeth have been glinting in the edge of his vision and those teeth have been some sort of spectral ghost following him around, and _no_ , that can't be it. "Get off me!" he yells, and how long has it been? How long has Beyond Birthday been tailing him? Weeks or more. He's supposed to be a detective. He's supposed to be someone who doesn't get pinned to the floor, knocked around like some kind of child.

"Do you know who I am?" Beyond Birthday asks him.

"Yes." He doesn't look much like L, Mello thinks, staring up at him. His jaw is sharp and his eyes are smiling and his tongue keeps making fleshy, slick sounds in his mouth. "Yes," Mello repeats, because he's not sure that he said it in the first place.

Beyond Birthday shifts his weight slightly, fingers coming up to claw lightly at Mello's temple, like he wants to dig through the skin. It's only after a moment that Mello realizes that Beyond Birthday is _stroking his face_. He bucks his hips trying to shake him off, trying to yank his wrists out of Beyond's grasp, but it's not working, he's stuck, he's stuck, and he's going to kill this bastard. He's going to fucking kill him.

"Do you know what I am?" Beyond Birthday asks.

"A murderer," Mello barks, then tries to spit in his face, but Beyond's too high up and he just grins as the spittle lands on Mello's cheek. He thrashes again, desperate, unclean - he feels unclean.

Beyond bites his bottom lip, twisting it up between his teeth. "Well, that - yes. I guess I'm a lot of things. Crazy, you know, being one of them. Mad." He sits up, drawing white lines on Mello's face with his fingernails, then leaning down to kiss him on the nose. Mello almost manages to land some teeth marks on his chin. "They gave me tests and I answered all of the questions right and they gave me an A for arse-backwards mad. You know who else took the tests? You know who always gets straight A's?"

Mello's trying not to listen, looking around wildly for a way out, and he can't - there's no one else. Watson is dead and there's no one else. He'll have to make it alone, he'll have to do this by himself, he'll have to, he'll have -

"Mihael," Beyond snaps, voice silky and ragged at once, "eyes up here. I'll give you a hint, it starts with an L."

He doesn't notice at first, but it seeps in as the words register, and then it sort of clicks and Mello's really going to vomit now. He hasn't had anything but that cocoa all day - what day is it? - but he's going to vomit. This is not happening, except for the part where this is obviously happening, and _how is this happening?_

There is water on his face and it takes a moment for him to realize that he's crying and he wants to take it back, undo, undo, because he's strong, he's a fucking detective and this is not how it's supposed to happen at all. It's pathetic, but he wants his warm bed back, wants Wammy's and Roger's overtaxed drone and Matt's hair tickling his hands and sharp cigarette smoke and off-white walls with dirt in the cracks, oak paneling, a church down the road from the main building where Mello used to break in and pray when he was very, very young, when he didn't care that the other kids laughed at his rosary. He still prays these days, but mostly just to spite them. The church down the road is too far a walk and no one listens just as well from his bedroom as no one had listened there.

_God, God, are you there? Hello, please pick-up. It's me, Mihael_ \- just like Beyond said; Beyond knows his name; and how how how? - _and I could use some fucking help right about fucking now and fuck, fuck fuck fuck._ That's not how you pray. He always does it wrong. Not all wrong, but wrong enough to be second best, to be the one on the linoleum floor with a psychopath in his lap and the corner of a hardcover copy of _The Brothers Karamozav_ digging into his shoulder.

There are tears on his face and Beyond Birthday leans down and licks at them and the whole cycle starts over again, Mello screaming and kicking and his throat hurts and his body hurts and how long will he be down on this floor? Until Watson's body starts to decompose? Until the neighbors come to check - as if the neighbors would come to check. This is a lonely city. It's all lonely cities. There is ghost story on his lap licking his face and he ran away from home, or close enough to home, because he'd wanted to catch the glory by the hair. He'd wanted to be somebody's hero and he'd wanted just one good pat on the back and a, _"Well done, kid."_

But that's all fucked now, isn't it? Or maybe it's been fucked from the beginning. He's always known - L - L

"L's dead," he says to Beyond Birthday, the words lodging thick in his throat and the sobs wrack his body and it's almost a relief to say the words, to get them out. To speak, to speak to somebody.

"No." There's a hand in Mello's hair and suddenly he'd being yanked up and thrown down again and the playful madness in Beyond's eyes has been replaced with something seething and violent that tosses Mello around like a rag-doll. "Is that what they told you?" he spits, not waiting for an answer. "No. I would know, okay. I would _know_. You know with identical twins, there's all this research into telekinetic connection. Like they're one person. Like they can feel the other one there, like a second layer of skin. It's like that." He glares at Mello, like he's daring him not to believe it. "I'd know, okay?"

"Fuck you," Mello says, too drained of energy to yell properly, but he's angry and he's _annoyed_ on top of it all, because Beyond Birthday is speaking to him and Beyond Birthday is out of his mind and what did he do to earn this, really? There's a madman in his lap and how did he get there, how did any of this get the way it is now? "You psycho fucking fuck," he says, calmly, like he's addressing Beyond by any old nickname. "Don't you understand? You're nothing to L. Nothing. He doesn't care about you. He probably doesn't even remember you exist."

Mello thinks Beyond's going to hit him, but he just slaps a limp hand through the air, suddenly outrageously camp, and lets out a wheezy giggle.

"Oh, deflection!" he squeals. "Father-figure issues! You are exciting, even without the jailbait rape-attempt saga. It's the trousers, I think." He slides one hand down Mello's waist, trailing his fingers across the leather on his hips, and Mello nearly sprains his wrist trying to get him off again. "They're very tempting. But L - L, L, L. L's a whole other thing, you know."

He shifts a little and Mello can feel the warmth of his thighs through his jeans, and what the fuck is that?

His voice is quiet and startlingly lucid for a moment as he blinks at something behind Mello's head and says, "There's the world and there's lights and stone and gravel and water and things, and that's all very well, but then there's L." His eyes snap back to Mello and then he's grinning again. "You ever been in love with a thing, Mihael?"

There it is again. No one's used that word around him since he was seven and Mr. Wammy came to visit him at the latest in a long run of foster homes. He used to whisper it to himself sometimes, when he was a kid, so that he wouldn't forget. But then he got older and forgetting didn't really seem like a big deal anymore.

"How do you know my name?" he asks, voice softer than he wants it to be.

B's teeth dig into his lip, the edges of his mouth quirking. "It's right there." He taps his finger at Mello's forehead, stopping right above so that it doesn't make contact, then shakes his head. "I'll tell you all about it later, just answer the question."

"Fuck you."

Beyond takes his wrists in one hand, flattening them to the floor.

"I'll take that as a _I don't know, I've got all these teenage hormones, and the nice man with the sweet breath wanted to hurt me and I wanted him to hurt me._ That's what it is, isn't it? There are always nice men with sweet breath and grabby hands."

He's pulling something metal out of his pocket and by the time that Mello realizes that they're handcuffs, they're already around his wrists.

"When I was a child," B says, "I wanted to work at a whorehouse. I thought it seemed romantic, you know? The body as a commodity, to be bought and sold. It's transcendence without the transcending. I thought it was very beautiful. Then L told me that no one would ever want to have sex with me." He laughs and latches Mello to what is probably the radiator. "He was 12 at the time. He ate his words later, just like he ate the skin off my bones."

Mello yanks at the cuffs, struggling with renewed vigor. "You're so full of shit," he grits. "I don't even know what you're talking about and I don't care!" Beyond moves out of his line of sight and Mello jerks around to try to see what he's doing, shuffling over to the other side of the room. "I don't care! Are you listening?"

"Pipe down, will you, goldilocks?" B calls over. Then there's a thump and Mello watches Watson's body collapse in a heap not a few feet away. B grins over the top of it. "Hey, you wanna see something neat?"

 

\---

 

He wakes up in a church. It's the first of many mornings. It doesn't look like a church because it's the back room, where they keep the spare crucifixes and the extra hosts. He doesn't know any of this now, but he'll know it later. The year is 1985. He'll know that later, too.

It's snowing today. He knows that now. It had snowed all night and into the morning and he'd fallen asleep to the gentle rocking of his body against someone's chest, listening to the wind whistle through the stone. That person is not here now. Neither is her chest. There are men with black robes and lined faces and very little hair, all squinting down at him in mild, disdainful puzzlement. They argue. Nobody wants to keep him but nobody particularly wants to throw him away. There's a man with a pipe and harsh laugh and he doesn't look, doesn't contribute more than vague, joking suggestions, but he's the one who takes him in the end. Finds him new shoes and a warm coat, clothes for the little boy with dirty hands. Charity. One of the seven heavenly virtues.

He knows he should say, "Thank you," but all he can manage is, "Where is my mother?" over and over again until his voice goes hoarse and quiet. They find him bedding and they find him food - snacks, sweets from town, little boy food. His mother is not coming back and he decides, after a day of waiting, that she must have died. She died, so of course she can't come. He cries into the laughing man's robes and gets knocked off to the side. Can't be bothered, he says. Has a mass to do, he says.

The laughing man stops laughing. The laughing man stops smoking his pipe. After a while, the laughing man gets put in a plot behind the chapel, and the little boy sleeps and wakes in the church every morning for three years.

That's when the rest of them start dying.

 

\---

 

Mogi's easy. He doesn't talk much, so Aiber does all the talking, lays it down and lets it settle. He's been through it enough times before - Matsuda, Aizawa, Ide - it's just the chief after this, and maybe a bit more fucking around with the girl, and things will start to unravel.

"You - " Mogi says, quiet, not angry and not confused and not anything really, just quiet. "You're saying - L and Light?" It's a comparatively calm reaction. Aizawa had thrown a shit-storm about speaking ill of the dead. Ide had blushed and told him to fuck off. Matsuda, well - Matsuda had been a bit more fun at least.

"Yes," Aiber says, nodding. "L and Light, Light and L. Anyway you wanna slice it, it happened."

They're in a downscale bar that he imagines Wedy would turn her little designer nose up at, but Aiber feels at home here. He remembers slipping out of his house to sneak into places like this when he was a teenager. Couldn't go to any of the nice bars in town, because more nights than not, his folks would already be there, doing shots off of each other's stomachs and pawing at people half their respective ages. He'd been 19 and two years out of the house before he'd actually legally entered a club, and a few months older when it had been one that didn't have vomit on the sidewalk out in front.

Tokyo's night life isn't bad, but he can't stomach it anymore, and doesn't have time to, anyway. There's too much to do, too much to find out, and the days move faster now, or else rush past him in a haze of alcohol and Lucky Strikes and boys with hips almost like L's. He'd barely made it out of bed this morning, but Watari had called and then called four more times until he'd picked up, head throbbing and some little prick yelling for his money in rapid Japanese.

_"Mogi today,"_ Watari had said, and so here he is today, with Mogi.

The whole plan is to bring Light Yagami down from the inside. If they drop enough hints, sow enough discord, and maybe drive Misa Amane a little crazy in the meantime, eventually something's got to give. Yagami evidently doesn't suspect anything, because Aiber hasn't noticed his heart stopping yet, but it's only a matter of time. Still, if they can find L - and they _will_ find L - quickly enough, it won't matter. They'll get him back and Yagami will go to the execution chair and things will go back to how they'd been. Criminals will keep on going the way they had, and the world might swallow itself whole, but there will be more days on more mattresses on more floors, and he will hold L's wrist and L will fall asleep - for real this time - and it will be -

It will be alright. Or something like that.

"I don't know if I should believe you," Mogi says, and he might as well be reading stock phrases from the catalogue of, _'things to say when receiving surprising news.'_

Aiber splits up his smirk with his drink. God, this is so easy, he might as well not have gotten up in the first place. A text message and well placed emoticon could have done just as well, and he wouldn't have to foot the bill for their drinks. He'd offered to pay, of course. A scheme is a scheme, but that's no excuse for bad manners.

"I don't know if you should either," he tells him, setting down his drink. The glass is foggy and he leaves thick fingerprints all over it, wipes them away with the edge of his sleeve and his mouth tastes like frost and the ash Wedy left behind. "Hell, I don't know anything. But you're a sharp guy, Mogi-san. I'm sure you'll figure it out."

He reaches out a friendly hand and knocks him on the shoulder, patting his back like they're old war buddies or something. Aiber's not the type to have war buddies, though. He's not the type to enlist in the first place. He throws some crumpled bills on the table and stands up, feeling airy and relieved. There's a clattering, stilted sound across the room as a very drunk man in a very cheap suit knocks into one the waiters and then apologizes profusely, stumbling over his words like stones on the pavement.

"What are you using me for?" Mogi asks then, and Aiber smiles charmingly at him on instinct, only processing the question after the expression has formed on his face.

His hand is still on the table and he doesn't move, just leans there. "Excuse me?"

Mogi is looking at the table, scratching the cheap wood with two errant fingers. "You're using me for something, right?" he says, sounding as unmoved as ever. "It's a game. You guys are always playing games and you're always using us in them." He curls his fingers up to stop them clawing at the table and Aiber can see him reign in the urge. "You, L, Light, Kira."

Maybe Aiber should pay more attention to the fact that Mogi groups Light together in the same manipulative group as the rest of them, but as it is, it barely registers. Instead he frowns and sits back down, planting a finger on the table and saying, "Hey, I'm not one of _them_."

"Yeah," Mogi says, not seeming to intend any particular offense, "you are."

"No, I'm not."

Aiber picks up his half-empty drink and tosses it back, swallowing with a grimace and enjoying the the fizzle and burn at the back of his throat. He's not sure what to say to that, hadn't penned anything like this into the script and has never been very good at improvising. Never been that good at planning either.

He's just never been very good.

He flags down the bartender and orders another, and one more for Mogi, too, even though his glass is mostly full. They don't look at each other, but Mogi's back to clawing at the table - a nervous habit, reminds him of the way his sister used to scratch at her arms until they were scabbed and bleeding; reminds him of how they'd put her in a long-sleeved dress for the funeral, and peonies, peonies everywhere, peonies for the girl who'd had pollen allergies when she'd been alive. Their drinks come and someone is singing drunkenly out on the street, performing for the laughing crowd.

"So what if L and Light were seeing each other?" Mogi asks him after a few long, silent minutes. Aiber wonders what the hell he's been thinking about, wonders what a man like him even thinks about. "So what?" He doesn't even make it sound like a question. It doesn't sound like anything. Aiber might as well be at a table by himself.

"They weren't seeing each other," Aiber grits at him, trying not to be affected, shoving whatever the words raise out of him back in with another gulp and a hand across his mouth. "They were fucking. It's different. L didn't - " he tries, flounders, "- _that_ was a game."

Aiber can't decide if he's gotten the job done or not. Watari would probably tell him to try a little harder, the old bastard.

Mogi puts his hands in his lap to stop the scratching, says, "Are you sure you don't think Light is Kira just because L did?" His voice is deep, pleasant, too pleasant for the words and Aiber hates violence, hates when people bleed ugly all over his clothes, but he wishes Wedy's gun was here, and he maybe wishes Wedy was here, too, because doesn't know how to point the damn things. "What evidence do you really have?" Mogi asks.

And there's a switch that's happened somewhere along the lines, because when his glass was full, he'd been the one behind the counter, asking the questions, taking the notes. But now Mogi looks calm and Mogi looks placating, and those are both things Aiber can't afford to be, or hasn't since L disappeared. October 31st. Fucking halloween, and isn't that a good joke? His own fucking birthday. Isn't that a better one? He puts his hand on the table and squares his jaw and tries to focus on Mogi's face instead of the bar lights twinkling behind him.

"L's gone," he says, trying to remember Mogi's question as best he can, "and the only people who knew his identity and knew where to find him were on the investigation team. Now unless you think Matsuda is Kira - "

"I think you're drunk," Mogi says, no condemnation in his voice. Aiber looks at his glass and it's empty, and this all seems like a really terrible idea now.

"So what if I'm drunk?" he says, pushing his hair out his eyes, where it falls in thick strands. He needs a shower, needs a glass of water, needs someone nice to take home. "So what, right?" He stands up, stumbling out of his chair with exaggerated incapability so that Mogi will stand from his own and take him by the arm. He does, plays just right even though he doesn't seem to know that he's playing.

They make it out into the street, into the thick, cold air, and Aiber thinks about kissing him but doesn't, and it's just another blurry night in a blurry month.

 

\---

 

**two hours earlier.**

 

\---

 

Light whimpers often and he reminds L of a child. Not of any of the children's he's known in particular - stony-faced little overachievers who are more akin to Light when he's up an about and tearing apart the world - but what he imagines the generic child must be like. Helpless and curled up and afraid of itself, of its circumstance, and unable to define the world around it through language or coherent thought; a being who lives through white noise and desperation. Light whimpers and L brushes his sweat-soaked hair up from his forehead and rather wants to be able to take care of him - for convenience's sake - without having to admit to the fact to any of the parties involved, himself included.

"What would you do if you escaped?"

Rem's voice is low, kept quiet so as not to wake Misa, who's been out in the chair for going on an hour. L's body locks up at the shock of it, but he pretends to be unfazed. The thing about a Shinigami is that there's no presence to it. Whether it's because they're not from this world or if they're simply like that regardless, he doesn't know, but it's highly unnerving, either way.

"Eat an ice cream sundae, probably," he tells her, without turning around, and after a moment she floats into view, phenomenally unobtrusive for someone of her size and appearance. Maybe it's the way the dejected look on her face has become even more dejected than usual, but he guesses at her intention fairly easily. "You're curious about what would happen to Misa, I assume?"

Rem says nothing and L puts a finger to his lips.

"Can Shinigami really become attached to humans, or have you just seen her in her underwear too many times?"

The shift is instant and the boil of her anger is suddenly palpable, her one eye narrowing to a slit, and it strikes him then that Shinigami are really real, not just in the vague, plastic way that most things are real - gaming consoles and fried ice cream and tax returns - but real in a human way; an uncomfortable, gutting way. She's embarrassed, he realizes, ashamed of her feelings, and he instantly likes her all the more for it. A thing wracked with shame and doubt and quietness is infinitely more sympathetic than even the nicest man with the surest smile and the cleanest conscious, with no thought of possible wrongdoing.

L tries to smile at her. She takes it as a threatening gesture.

"You're despicable," she says, lips curling around the words with a familiar disdain. "You're just like him."

It's not hard to know who _he_ is. L could be insulted, but he laughs instead, glancing at the clammy forehead of the prettiest boy in town. It's terrible to want to kiss a sick man, no matter what definition of the word you use, and L is terrible.

"Not _just_ like," he says, "but close enough." Then he looks over at Misa, eyes tracing up her rumpled pajamas. "She'd go to jail at the very least, but execution is more likely. I might be interested in making a sort of bargain with you at some point, trading her freedom for mine, but not now." He glances back to Light, fingers running soft along the bedspread. "I have to stay here for a while. Someone's got to keep him from going completely off the deep end."

Rem snorts, or does the rough death god equivalent. "It seems as if you've already failed in that."

He rather agrees with her assessment, but admitting as much will help nothing, so he asks instead, "Would you give me the keys?"

"I thought you didn't want to leave," she says, looking from him and to the door and back again.

"I don't. I want to test something, see what his reaction will be if he thinks I'm escaping." He hold out his hands, wiggles his fingers. Rem doesn't present him with a mode of escape that easily, though, just ignores his hand. That's alright, he hadn't expected her to.

"He may kill you," she says.

"He may, but I doubt it."

The room is quiet, but there's the distant shake and shuffle of the building, the bang of doors closing. They're in a basement of some sort, he knows, and suspects it's no more than two levels down from the way the sound travels. He's not sure exactly where the building is, but from the occasional echoes of traffic that hit at certain points during the day, he can tell they're still somewhere in the city. Tokyo, no doubt, given how quickly and often Light comes and goes. Likely somewhere at least somewhat disreputable - somewhere no one Light knows could possibly run into or spot him. No doubt somewhere well hidden. Light might be an emotional wreck who's incapable of navigating honest human interaction, but he's still brilliant, and he wouldn't have left any ends hanging loose.

If L wants to get out of here ever, he has to rely on himself, not a chance rescue. And if he wants to get anything at all done, he has to get Rem to agree to this.

"What will you give me in exchange?" she asks, eye locked on him, but skipping up to glance at Misa every other second and she is a terrible liar and he realizes then how to get her to do absolutely anything he wants. He doesn't smile, but arranges his face in a suitably ponderous expression, shifting slightly to lean towards her.

"I'll provide a different sort of freedom for Miss Amane," he says, head tilting to the side, if only out of habit. She's seen him talk straight often enough to know that most of his mannerisms are put on, but she still listens with stuttered concentration as he speaks. "She's in love with him," he says, nodding to Light, "and that's no good for anyone, her included. I'll fix that for her."

"You don't think you can - "

"I'll make her fall in love with me," L says, firmly, more firmly than he actually suspects he feels. It's hard to tell how he feels, sometimes. "Please don't look so surprised, I do this sort of thing a lot. Practically make my living from it. It might not be easy and it might not be quick, but then it never is, and if I can sever her attachment to him, it will be worth it, won't it?" He lifts his eyes and does smile then.

She looks at him for a long moment, the off-color tendrils of her hair shifting in an eerie half-real way - as if she's only partly here, the rest scattered in faded, inhuman places - then produces a small set of keys from somewhere within the folds of what might be her skin and might be her exoskeleton. L wants to grab at them on sight, but has monitored enough hostage exchanges in his time to know that overeagerness never gets anyone anywhere, and stays stock still.

Rem looks him up and down, then glances to Light's huddled body on the bed next to him. "Promise," she says. Or I'll kill you myself."

"Pinky-swear," L tells her, nodding perfunctorily and holding out his hand. "Keys?"

Rem glances down at his finger, then slowly slips the largest key off of the ring, returning it to, presumably, wherever she'd gotten the rest, and hands him those that are left. "You're not getting out the front door."

As this is not an unforeseen turn of events, he just shrugs and says, "I don't intend to."

 

\---

 

**two hours later.**

 

\---

 

Mogi's hair smells like generic drugstore shampoo and he shoves Aiber off whenever he pushes his face into it, maneuvering him into the taxi with some difficulty and speaking in low-voiced Japanese to the sullen driver. Aiber speaks very good Japanese when he's sober - L had made him perfect it; L had made him do a lot of things, like yell, like scrub violently at his skull while vomiting onto a street corner in Montreal, like pay attention to the word choice in the shitty love poetry he likes to send to his favorite boys and girls - but Aiber is not sober now and L is not here and, plebeian as it is, he likes the smell of Mogi's hair.

"Where do you live?" Mogi asks him, communicating between him and the cab driver.

Aiber laughs because he suddenly finds it all excessively funny - him drunk in a cab, just the usual, and the blind man with his seeing eye dog leading him across the street a few yards away and the whirring glint of the Tokyo buildings that go up and up. It's all very funny.

"Where do you live?" Mogi asks him.

Aiber says, "France," and keeps laughing.

 

\---

 

Until L was six years old, he'd lived in a church. Until he was 17, he'd lived with Beyond Birthday. Until a few months ago, he'd lived in complete silence.

All of those things are in some ways like the others and all of them are in some ways not, but none of them at all resemble what it is like to live with Light Yagami, and even that doesn't quite touch the reality of what it is like to live with Kira.

He misses the boy, actually. There'd been a night back - before things had lost their rose-colored tint, before they'd even truly fucked - where he and Light had gone up onto the roof together. L's feet had been cold, felt after a while like they weren't even there anymore, and the chain had dragged on the ground between them and Light had said, "You're a bad man, aren't you?" and L had said, "Your fly's undone," and Light had laughed and kissed him on the wrist.

But then, there had been moments when the silence was more peaceful than caging, moments when he'd watch the daily mass from the balcony above, eating stolen sweets and smelling like incense. Moments when Beyond would sit on his windowsill just after sunrise and tap out Bach's third Brandenburg Concerto on the wall beside him. And there'd also been the moments when B had left dead animals in his bed. Everything is pretty sometimes, and Light Yagami is no better than anything, even if he still kisses L's wrist.

Aiber would do that too. Aiber's hands were too large, and clumsy, and the pleasure of sex with him was that he wasn't very good at it. L was always better. Aiber was sloppy, Aiber smiled while fucking, did a whole 'Hugh Hefner in an armchair; you should prance around for me' thing, and did it well. He'd fall asleep after, sometimes on top of L, and L would have to kick him awake and off the bed if he wanted to get any work done.

Wedy's better. Was better. She had technique, as she did in all things, and made quite a production out of it. She liked restraints and she liked for her lipstick not to smudge and she liked a cigarette after, and to be the one to tell him to get out. She'd cook breakfast - eggs, bacon, pancakes, straight-up American style; never was much of a patriot, but never liked any country she was in any better - and tell him if he wanted to eat, he'd eat what she made. He, of course, went hungry, mostly just on sheer principal.

Thierry Morello wanted to be an actor when he was younger. Saved up his money and went to university for it. Found he was better at playing roles in real time, better when he could touch and smile and speak in low-voiced, conspiratorial whispers with the audience he was performing for. Merrie Kenwood always wanted to be a thief. Her mother wanted her to be Miss America and took her to beauty pageants all over the country. Merrie started lifting the prize money in the middle of the contests by the time she was fourteen. Started fucking the judges, just for kicks, a little while after that. She still calls her mother every week in her nursing home.

Still did. Until -

Light is standing in the doorway. He looks winded and he looks like he's just been shot and he looks like he might up and murder L here and now and L thinks, good. Good, then they can sort this. They can finally put aside their oh so precious little feelings and brawl it out, scrabble and scrape and break bones until one of them bleeds and keeps bleeding and doesn't stop bleeding. Let them settle this like mammals. Let them settle this like monsters.

L is on the floor, curled up, but his fingers itch and as soon as Light makes a move to hit him, L is going to hit back. His body coils, his feet twitch, and it's going to hurt. He can feel it already, the echoes of something that hasn't happened yet. Light moves slowly, or quickly, and L thinks about his fine thighs and the way his fingers move neatly, in a straight line, as he writes. _"You're a bad man, aren't you?"_ and it's applicable on all sides, to all parts of the situation.

Light stops, stands in front of him, and the sound of his knees on the floor as he drops down next to L is not loud, but it jars the room anyway. And the feeling of Light's hand on his shoulder rocks through him and it's very quiet and he wants to move, he wants to hit him, he wants -

And then Light's breath is in his hair and his hands are scraping around his back and he says, "L," and he says, "How?" and L says, "What?" and Light tugs him by his hair and hugs him, very tightly and unexplainably.

He hadn't expected this, but he ought to have trained himself to expect the least likely and most out-of-place reactions from Light in all situations, and would if he let experience dictate things. He is choking L or he is hugging him and he is always doing one of those things, volleying violently from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other, as if the only way to justify his affection is to balance it with utter loathing and vice versa. He cannot decide whether to be the hero or the villain and he scraps his lines and rewrites them every other scene.

He's killed Aiber and Wedy, he wants to kill Watari. L is set to hate him and set to fight, because that is expected, that is how the story goes. When people do bad things to you, it is only good form to be hurt and unforgiving. Anything else is weak and improper and playing the show all wrong. Kill him. That's the way. That's the only way.

L hugs him back, though. He doesn't fully understand the situation and he doesn't fully need to. Light smells like sweat and he looks exhausted and he leans too heavily on L.

"How?" he repeats. "How did you do it?"

"I don't know," L says, because he doesn't even really understand what Light's asking. How he got out? "Rem, she gave me the key - "

"No, not that. You - you."

It sounds like a question about L's existence, like some sort of philosophical inquiry. _Well, when a man loves a woman_ \- or rather, thinks she looks good in her Sunday dress. Maybe L will tell Light about his childhood sometime, but he's fairly certain that's not what he's asking either. His body isn't as warm at it had been, his movements not as jerky, and his fever must be almost completely gone by now, or else he'd be dead, brain boiled in his skull. Still, he doesn't look healthy, not like his good old fake-smiling self again.

"Tell me how you did it?" Light repeats, but L still doesn't know what he's being asked, and suddenly Light's turning away, pushing out of his arms and speaking to a blank stretch of wall. "How did he do it? Did you do something? It doesn't make sense. It makes no sense."

"Light, do you need to lie down or something?" L asks, cautiously, because if Light isn't going to yell at him and fuck him against the wall for trying to escape, L would rather just set this all aside and get back to it in the morning. Perhaps he can convince Misa to go out for pastries if he tells her that Light needs them to get better and she pretends to be stupid enough to believe him.

All of his plans these days are dependent on the conspiratorial tendencies of a couple of mass murderers and a Shinigami. It would be funny if the humor hadn't worn off a week or so ago and his wrist wasn't itchy and the room wasn't curiously warm.

"Tell me," Light says to the wall again, and then it hits him. If Rem isn't sticking her head through the plaster, then someone else is, and since the list of people who have the ability to do that it conspicuously short, Light can only be speaking to one person - or, perhaps 'person' is the wrong term.

"Light," he says, pulling on his sleeves, pulling him back to face him. "Light, is there a Shinigami in the room?" Light's barely looking at him, and when he does, it's in a curious, wincing way, as if L is too bright or quick or strange for him to properly focus on. "I want to speak to it. Light, _look at me_."

He pulls his sleeve again and Light turns on him with a vehemence that's not unprecedented but certainly hadn't been present in the situation up until now, grabbing him by the face and tugging his chin up and jerky movements. "I am looking at you. Tell me how you did it."

"I don't know what you're asking me."

He really is completely out of his mind, isn't he, this boy of L's.

Light jerks his head around, goes from scowling imploringly at the blank wall to the doorway, where Rem floats, a tender sort of loathing in her face. "You," Light spits. "You did it, didn't you?" Rem just stares at him, until Light shakes his head. "No, you don't have that kind of power, _nothing_ has that kind of power, I - "

"Light," L says, firm hand of his shoulder. "Light - "

"Shut-up, I'm trying to think, I'm trying to - "

And L doesn't know what's going on, really, had a plan and succeeded in his plan and prepared for the natural fallout, but it's all not quite right. The world has tilted on its axis while he wasn't looking, leaving him to try to struggle to stand straight - to hold Light still, still and quiet - and get his bearings. He doesn't understand.

Then Rem holds up a piece of paper that makes Light's eyes go wild and hectic, accusing - somehow looking unattractive for one moment of his existence - and she says, "It wasn't a piece of the Death Note. It was a shopping list."

And then L rather does understand.

Light's muscles tense up, face searching, like he's attempting to figure out the punchline, then going loose and disbelieving. His body sort of slumps and his mouth curls unappealingly and L says, "You tried to kill me," at the same time as Light starts giggling. Madly. It's mad. He goes sort of boneless on L, fingers twining into his hair, and starts laughing like a maniac, body shaking with the tremors of it. It's not pretty, it's not pretty at all. Light had tried to kill him - with a shopping list, which is funny to some degree; which must have seemed dangerous to his addled little mind - and nothing about this situation is pretty.

If the story was going right, if it was any good at all, that would break the spell. L would be free. Goodbye, so long, see you. L would stop feeling the way he does, the need to brush Light's hair out of his eyes and put him to bed and tell him, _tomorrow will be better, tomorrow will be less afraid_. But it has always been a terrible story and as Light clutches him weakly as he laughs, L clutches him back.

Why does he always end up kissing psychopaths on the forehead? Why does he always he always end up with somebody else's blood on his hands, somebody who shouldn't be the one bleeding, somebody who should be the one cutting. Light is too much like B for his own good, at least as far as L is - was - concerned with either of them. He hopes they never meet. He hopes B's committed suicide by now, the way he always promised.

He shifts, pushing Light up a little, and repeats, "You tried to kill me." Light nods, laughter barely dying down. Rem watches them with disgust. The wall might as well be doing the same.

Light's still hanging on him, but as the laughter goes down, his grip gets harder, and in a moment or less he's pushing L into the wall, face pressed to his neck and half curled up in his lap. His breath comes rough and shaky and his fingers card through L's hair and _no_. If there was a time for relief-laden make-up sex, that time has passed. He shoves Light with one heavy push.

"You tried to _kill me_ ," he says again, not sure why it's so difficult to process, given that it can't quite be the first time. But it's just - it's just. "You couldn't even manage it properly."

"Not for lack of decisiveness," Light says, crawling back onto L like some dog that won't give up, no matter how many times it's kicked. He's so warm and so _good_ , even now, but L shoves him away, pulling himself half to his feet, and then kicks him in the chest for good measure. Light goes down hard, scowling, but seems more bothered by the principal of being kicked than any pain. He grabs L's leg, pulling him down with him, and L goes, landing in a convoluted straddle across his waist.

"Just for lack of reading comprehension," L says, and hits him. He hits him again. He grabs him by the hair and he hits him again. Light's mouth starts to bleed and it gets on L's knuckles, but he's still smiling, grinning like a loon, and when he wraps his arms around him, L means to hit him again, but doesn't quite. "That's for Aiber and Wedy," he murmurs, running his thumb along Light's bottom lip, picking up some of the blood and showing it to him. It's unsanitary, of course. None of this has ever been close to clean.

He should be angry for all of it, for Light trying to kill him with a grocery list, but then he should expect it by now. This is what he's signed up for. This is what he's bought and paid for. This is what he owns.

L rolls off of Light and lies next to him on the dirty carpeting. The room is empty of furniture, of anything but them and Rem's dull eye in the doorway. "I'm going to get you back for all of it," he says. "You know that, right?"

Light looks at him and the smile is gone from his eyes. He's maybe going to say something, but he doesn't, and he's maybe going to kiss him, but he doesn't. They stay like that for a long time.

 

\---

 

Back in the bedroom, Misa is asleep - drugged, L realizes, when he sees the needle; Light really enjoys using it, doesn't he? - and has been moved to the bed. By Rem most likely, and as much is confirmed when Light trudges in with L and locks the chain back around his wrist.

"I need to lie down," he says. "Move her."

Rem looks at him like she's about to do something very Death Godly and violent to him, and L rolls his eyes. "Don't be a shit, Light-kun." He pulls up the covers and climbs into the bed next to Misa, leaving a small space on the other side of of the bed - the bed that surely isn't meant to fit three people - and making himself comfortable not a few inches from Misa.

"Light," Light says, correcting him. He resents the honorific, L knows, which is mostly why he brings it out.

He watches as Light watches him, then, after a thin moment, unhooks the other end of the chain from the bed and attaches it to his own wrist, like they had the once. Like they had done before that, for a long, long time. He keeps watching as Light crawls into bed next to him, keeping to the edge like he's afraid to touch anything. There's blood drying on his face. It will ruin the sheets.

L kisses his wrist, the chained one, and says, "Don't be a shit, Light," while trying not to smile.

Light falls asleep quickly enough - must still be exhausted from his fever, hasn't even eaten anything - and L lies there through night and daybreak between the first Kira and the second, their respective breaths a contrasting rhythm in the dark.

 

\---

 

There is a heart on his chest.

There is a heart in his chest, but there is also a _heart on his chest_. Mello is chained to something, counting up and down from ten to keep calm, breaking into hysterical struggles every once in a while for good measure, and Beyond Birthday is doing something out of his sight that involves a lot of squelching and muted giggling and some humming of what sounds like a Ramones song, and then Beyond is standing over him, grinning like the devil on a hot day and _there is a heart on Mello's chest._

It's still warm. The blood is soaking into his shirt. Its Watson's, it must be. Watson had tried to rape him he doesn't know how long ago and now he's dead and Beyond Birthday has cut out his heart and it's on Mello - like a live thing, like a creature - and he can't, he _can't_ -

"You've stolen his heart, you see," B says, in his tinkling, smiling voice. His teeth are very shiny in the street lights from outside. "You're a smooth little criminal. You're a very pretty boy."

B pokes at the heart with the tip of one dirty trainer. Mello thinks about crying again, but he can't breathe. This is terrifying and very calm at the same time, and he's not dead yet, so he doesn't really know what.

"What, " he tries, "what - why are you doing this?" And that's stupid, _stupid_ , psychopaths don't need a reason to go around cutting people's hearts out.

Beyond kneels down next to him and Mello flinches on instinct, tries to shimmy away, but he can't move, he can't move. "You ever been to the Orient, you little heartbreaker?" he asks, and Mello doesn't know what the hell he's taking about, doesn't know what the hell at all. "Either way, you and I are going to go on a little journey to the east." He grins so wide, too wide. "Like the monkey story, only in the opposite direction and with less moralizing. I've always wanted to see Tokyo in the winter, haven't you?"

He brushes Mello's hair out of his eyes with one gaunt, spidery hand, and Mello thinks _don't_ at the same time as he thinks _oh_. Oh.

 

\---

**tbc.**

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really know what's going on with my writing in this chapter. I feel like I've hit overdrive in the rambling poeticism department and I'm pretty sure I tone it down for a while after this? I hope? God, it just feels very stilted and awkward this time and maybe I was going for that but reading it back gives me hives. Still, it's been too long since I updated, so I think it's important that I learn to suck up my dissatisfaction and just get on with the story.
> 
> The 'shopping list' thing was possibly a cheap cop-out but it was always going to be. I wanted to build up something with dramatic tension and all that, then have it fall a little flat and be a mundane little fuck up - ridiculous but human. I don't think I really succeeded though, so it just reads sloppily. God, I'm whiny today.
> 
> If anyone is confused as to why Aiber is still alive (which is very possible because it happened about a million years ago), there's a flash-forward in chapter two in which Wedy changes her and Aiber's names within L's system, so that Light will not be able to kill them. Hence, survival! Like I would really let go of those two babydolls. Wedy will be beck, too, just in case anyone doubted that.
> 
> The 'monkey story' that Beyond is referring to is Journey to the West, a classical Chinese novel about Monkey, a pseudo-trickster figure in Chinese mythology.
> 
> Thanks for reading and *throws away any and all pretense at decorum* please review if you can. but of course, I'll love you all either way.


	14. still no surviving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> notes: and on this week's episode of ~a lot of words and no plot events~ i bring you chapter 14 of nights. i have two apologies to make, the first being about the wait for this update and the second being about the quality of writing contained therein. it is not my best by a long shot and i struggled so much with this but, short of rewriting the entire thing (which would have taken another two weeks at the least) i did as much as i could with it. i have to treat this fic like an experiment, and its chapters like a series of experiments, if i don't want to go crazy and weep in shame at everything about it. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and that's okay.
> 
> i'm going to work really hard to make the next chapter better, for myself and for you guys. if you make it through this one, my hat off to you, and thank you, thank you, thank you for sticking with me this long. over 150k is amazing to me and not something i ever considered i'd achieve this year, and it's because of all of you that i've made it this far. i can't tell you how much i appreciate your support (and any constructive criticism too!).
> 
> special thanks to tai black for sending me a sweet message and encouraging me to post this, despite how unsatisfied with it i am. it mean a lot to me, doll!

"Despair has its own calms."  
\- Bram Stoker, _Dracula_

 

\---

 

No one really goes into Wammy's former-observatory for anything other than drinking and making out, and nobody at Wammy's really drinks or makes out, so that had more or less just left Mello and Matt with a cool, empty room in which to smoke and talk and take the piss out of whoever'd been bugging Mello that day. Now Mello's gone and the air is too cold and the smoke from Matt's cigarette mixes visibly with his breath. He coughs on a lung-full and then pretends that he hadn't. Mello had always ragged on him for it, had said he'd probably die of second-hand cancer or something and then Matt'd be sorry. Always smiled like an arse and flicked balled-up notes at the ends of Matt's cigarettes, saying maybe one day they'd catch and the whole building would go up in flames - said it like a good joke, like nothing at all.

His aim had always been off, though; never quite hit the mark.

"Where do you think he is now?" Near says from the doorway, pale and eerie and suddenly there, like a ghost haunting the early morning.

Matt glances at him briefly, but doesn't pause his handheld game. "Are you trying to make conversation?" he asks, just because he knows that Near isn't and wouldn't ever.

He doesn't move from the doorframe, just curls a finger through his hair. "No," he says. "Roger told me to ask you." Matt snorts, could have figured out as much on his own - he's number three, after all; or is it two now? - and jams his finger harder than he needs to into the 'X' button. "He said to pretend that I was asking for myself but that I would really be asking for him."

Matt grits a smile. Near says it like a clueless child, but then that's the technique, isn't it? Matt's sure he's being manipulated somehow at this very moment, but then he couldn't truly care overmuch.

"Good job on that," he tells Near.

"I'm not stupid," Nears says, taking two very measured steps into the room. He looks like something discarded and small. His eyes are wider than usual. He's doing it on purpose.

"I know you're not stupid," Matt says.

Near takes another two steps. "I could have manipulated the information out of you."

"So you _are_ trying to make conversation," Matt says dully. Near keeps moving closer, slowly, cautiously.

"Do you miss him?" Near asks, nearly standing over him now.

Matt frowns, nearly misses the jump, thumbs tapping furiously to keep up. "Yes."

"Did you ever kiss him?"

Matt's fingers stop. He misses that time, falls into a pit, gets the cheesy 'game over' screen with the winding-down music that plays in his head, even though the sound is off. _Retry?_ He wants to set the game aside but he doesn't want to Near to see him set it aside, or know that that is the kind question that makes him set things aside.

"What?" he says, which is stupid and ridiculous and obvious, obvious, _obvious_ , but he doesn't know what else to say.

There's a hole in the observatory ceiling, the glass shattered near the apex of the dome. There's plaster over it, but the cold air still gets in. It's been like that since Matt came to Wammy's, since before him, even. Nobody remembers there ever not being a crack in the ceiling. Nobody remembers the observatory ever being in use. It's common knowledge that Roger could afford to fix it, and less common - but widely suspected - that L's the one who refuses to let him. No one really knows why. Not that many people care, anymore. Mello had. Mello cares about everything.

Matt's fingers tap awkwardly at the screen, haphazardly pretending to still play, as if Near hasn't already noticed his sudden stiffness. 

"Linda and some of the girls were wondering," Near says, casually, like that's just the sort of thing you say to someone. He looks at Matt expectantly, who frowns, finally tossing away the gameboy and plucking up his cigarette.

"No," he says. Then, almost as an afterthought, "Fuck off."

"Did you want to?" Near asks.

Matt takes a long puff, looking away, and tries to seem unconcerned. "What is this, _Jeopardy!_ or something? No. Why would I want to kiss him?"

Near shrugs, face blank, but he looks too clever and too sure and Matt doesn't like him right now. He's always just rode on the coattails of Mello's loathing, only along for the ride, but never really had the energy to hate the little bastard properly. Probably still doesn't now, but he likes to pretend otherwise.

"He could pass for a girl," Near says.

Matt's chest skitters a little bit and he feels gross, like a pervert, like some creep taking up-skirt shots of a school-girl. Mello would fall asleep next to him all the time, would stay up all night studying and then pass out on Matt's shoulder or lap, pretty and too helpless for the kind of person he was. Matt would think about touching him. Not - not in a bad sort of way, not sexually or anything - just, his hair, his chin, the tips of his fingers. His nose. He's got a nice nose, and girly hair. That's what Matt had told himself at first - he was pretty like a girl, small and smooth - and - and so it made sense. Nothing wrong with it, nothing to do with Mello at all.

Then Matt had walked in on him in the shower, got an eye-full of cock and a wet towel thrown at his head and a lot of over-reactionary swearing directed at him - and had backed quickly out of the washroom, hard and ashamed and utterly resigned to his attraction.

"I'll tell him you said that when he gets back," Matt says, laughs almost, trying to play it cooler than he feels.

Near tilts his head. "What makes you think he's coming back?"

Matt taps his burned-down cigarette against the tip of a new one, balanced awkwardly between his lips, and it lights nicely, pretty, like a forest fire cupped under his palm. Like everything burning, everything ruined forever and ever. He knows he's being melodramatic. Roger had said as much to him last week in order to get him to buck up on his studies, but Matt's more or less committed to the role. Mello's gone, so someone has to do it.

He breathes out a puff of smoke and says, "What do you want, Near?"

Near collapses inwardly, falling do the floor in a casual heap a few feet from Matt, as if that's the invitation he'd been waiting for. "Beyond Birthday escaped from prison two weeks ago," he says, getting comfortable, like the cold stone floor is as good as any surface for lolling about.

It takes Matt a moment to process the words, takes him a moment more to recognize the ridiculous name. B. One of the original Wammy kids. The Beta to L's Alpha. Or was A Alpha? He was the suicide kid, Matt remembers. So maybe L was Omega? Either way, B was definitely Beta, or back-up, or possibly just _bat-shit_ , from the stories Matt has heard.

"What, that psycho guy?" Matt says, taking another drag. "I thought he'd been executed or something." There have always been whispers around Wammy's, and Beyond Birthday had featured rather heavily in some of them. And then hadn't Mello been on a kick about Beyond Birthday a few years back? Over something L had said, presumably.

"That was one of the popular theories circulating," Near says, so clinically and professionally, even while rolling around the the floor. "It's been disproved."

"How do you know?"

"Roger told me."

Matt taps the ash off the end of his cigarette. "Okay. Why are you telling me, then?"

Near looks up at him with those wide eyes again. "Because you're my friend."

Matt can't help the snort he lets out, choking a bit on the smoke in his lungs, and it turns into a cough. He smiles self-deprecatingly as he hacks it out. "Near, don't fuck around. Why are you telling me?"

Near's eyes stay wide and genuine for a moment, before calming down, the childish sparkle fading in on itself and leaving him dull and without any particular affectations once again. "Because," he says, pushing himself back up to his feet, "Beyond has been spotted around the English countryside and no one knows where Mello went. I thought if you were worried about him, you might be more likely to tell me where he is." He stands there, looking at Matt, face not changing, not even a twitch. The switch might be disconcerting, but then Matt's used to it - everyone at Wammy's is.

"Should I be worried?" he asks Near, scratching his ear again. In truth, he's got no idea where Mello might be - London, the US, Japan already - who fucking knows? He could guess, sure, but then so could anyone, and he'd rather leave it to them.

But, if Mello's in serious danger -

"He's fifteen," Near says, and doesn't blink. "He's got no money, no relatives, and nowhere to go. You should be worried anyway."

Matt's skin itches as Near walks away. His game screen blinks up at him, the pixels flashing obnoxiously. _Retry?_

 

\---

 

Misa wakes with L's hair tickling her cheek. It's rough, clumping and unwashed, but her eyelashes flutter against it and it's nice - nothing earth-shattering, nothing to fall in love over - but it's just nice. She ought to have nice things, sometimes, ought to -

Oh. She opens her eyes and his are right there, wide and on curious and on her, like she's a specimen under a microscope and he's the man in rubber gloves, running tests, taking notes. That's less nice. She pulls the cover up more fully over body, shielding herself even though she's completely clothed. That's a naked kind of stare. Things are never as nice as she wants them to be.

L blinks at her and she sits up, arms folding across her chest. "It's really creepy to watch people while they sleep like that, Ryuzaki," she says.

The hand thrown across L's back twitches and a soft breath of laughter ruffles the hair on the back of his head. "Don't I know it," says Light's muffled, sleepy voice. He sounds beautiful. She can only see the tips of his hair, his fingers and his shirt sleeve, but he's so beautiful.

L grunts, position shifting slightly, but he looks comfortable. Light strokes his arm for a moment, the gesture peculiarly sweet, but after a few seconds his body goes tenser and his movements more studied. She wonders if he always clams up as he wakes or if it's just because she's here.

The room is pleasantly cool. Someone must have turned the heater off. Maybe Rem. Rem, who had held her against her will last night, stopping her from chasing L, from using her Death Note to stop him. She's not sure what had happened, but L is here and Light is here and they're both both alive and relatively unharmed, so it all must have worked out fine without her.

Misa ties her hair back in a ponytail as Light sits up. She says, "This is weird."

L yawns. "It seems perfectly unremarkable to me."

Light starts smiling, but then stops, moving unsteadily up and out of the bed as he mumbles, "That's because you're a whore." There's a click and a slight jangle and then the chain is dropping on the bed and he's padding softly across the floor, picking up loose pieces of clothing. Both Misa and L watch as he chooses a sweatshirt, pulling it over his head with a slight wiggle. It's almost endearing. Misa feels almost endeared to him. He'd stabbed her with a needle, she remembers, but that seems minor in comparison to the calming benevolence of the moment.

He checks his watch. "Come on, Misa, we've got to get back to the apartment before morning." He glances in the mirror, frowns and pulls up his hood. "Suspicions aside, I really don't want to be seen like this by anyone I know."

Misa watches as he attaches the loose end of L's cuffs back to the headboard, and she should feel something - jealous or angry or betrayed - but it's not coming. She stands brushing her hair out of her eyes and looking for her shoes. There's the stack of books she'd brought over for Light a day and a half ago, sitting untouched by the door. Everything shifts strangely as she moves and it's not right, the world tap-dancing under her, bright and too much at a time.

"What even happened yesterday?" she asks, more quietly than she means to. There's a hip-shift and head-tilt and a hair-flip that she needs to do, a little extra bit of pep that she needs in her voice and it usually comes easy - more natural to her interactions than not - but right now it's all stilted, achey in a distant way. She blinks, sees a flick of metal and Light's stern face and then it goes blank, the image twitching behind her eyes. She looks up. "You drugged me, didn't you?"

Light's still examining himself in the mirror, wiping invisible smudges off of his face. He barely seems to hear her.

L is curled up on the bed, finger to his mouth, and he glances between Light and Misa and then makes a sound that is maybe pitying and maybe disparaging as he rolls his eyes. "Did you?" he asks, addressing Light. "Jesus, you're a terrible boyfriend. I should track down this - Mikami, was it?" He looks to the ceiling, tugging on his lip. "Send him a letter of warning."

"Who's Mikami?" Misa asks, before she can stop herself. She doesn't know why she would stop herself - Light's her boyfriend, her responsibility, she has to know these things - but listening to them speak to each other is like picking a scab, like teasing herself with all sorts of things colored _misery_. There's a circuit here, one she's left out of, and she wants to dig a place for herself in it and she wants to go back to sleep and she wants -

She wants for Light to not stab her with needles. She wants him to not drug her, not shrug off everything she says, not glance right past her like she's a plant or some kind of light fixture. She feels like a cardboard cut-out of a girl when she's around him, like she's not even real. Like the only thing that's real is him, and she just - she wishes he wouldn't stab her with needles.

"I mean it, Misa-san," L's saying, but he's not even speaking to her, staring across the room at Light, who's, of course, staring back, "you should cut and run while you still can."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Misa says, pulling on her shoes, and she's not quiet or anything, but it's like her words simply fade into the air, not reaching either of them. Where's Rem? She needs Rem. She needs someone to look at her and see something.

"I don't know what's given you the impression that she still can," Light says, straightening out his sleeves. He's unkempt this morning, face still lined with yesterday's sickness, but still so lovely. Misa would like to touch him and most days she would, just grab on and hold tight until he shoves her away, but this morning she pulls her boots on and doesn't move.

"Hiroshi Ono, Light," L says, as Light gathers up everything he'd brought the other day, handing some of it off absently for Misa to put in her bag. "Make the call."

Light sighs, rolls his eyes. Misa has no idea what they're talking about and doesn't really care. "I should just kill him," Light says. "Nip it the bud."

"Oh, like you nipped me in the bud?" L asks, voice rougher suddenly. "Yes, that worked out well." He sounds angry and Light looks angry and Misa -

Misa's angry, too, she thinks. Quietly, staunched and snuffed out, but there's fissures of something twisting under her skin. What had happened last night? Light had been on the floor, she remembers, and she had tried to help him, but he wouldn't let himself be helped, wouldn't let her touch him.

"I'm not even sure if he's the right man," L says, "and if he's not and you kill him, you'll not only end the life of an innocent person, but you may rob us of a valuable lead in apprehending the real killer. Set aside your notebook for once and use common sense."

_L Lawliet_ , Misa thinks. It could be very, very easy, and then he's gone.

Light huffs, throwing the bag of supplies Misa had brought by yesterday over his shoulder. "Yes, of course, I'll just take the advice of the man chained to bed."

"As the man who chained me to the bed," L mumbles, "you haven't exactly got a leg to stand on."

_Light Yagami_ , Misa thinks. That could be easy, too, maybe.

Light smiles and it's sharp and he's still not looking anywhere but at L, almost leaning down over him, fingers stressing the sheets against the mattress and L meets his eyes, doggedly unconcerned, and Misa stands by, not doing anything in particular. She feels more apart from the situation than she maybe ever has, even though she'd apparently shared in a bed with the two of them last night. It feels like everything has skipped ahead by entire chapters, and she's left leafing from page to page, trying to catch up.

"If last night proved anything," Light says, low-voiced and more intense than the early morning, half-awake situation probably necessitates, "it's that I have the follow-through to do _it_ , and would have, in a more coherent state of mind." He flicks L's hair out his eyes with one quick finger. "So don't get too comfortable."

L doesn't flinch, just rolls his eyes, glancing to the ceiling. "I don't know how I could be comfortable with your cock digging into my back all night."

Light's expression tightens. "You want to talk about excessive sexual - "

"Shut-up," Misa says, quietly at first, but then - "Both of you - just, _shut-up_."

L breathes out, puffing at the ceiling without looking at her as Light shoots a huffy glare over his shoulder. He hates being interrupted. He hates a lot of the things she does, and she wants to be heard and she wants to stand firm and she wants to tell them that they're both as bad as the other and should just let it go, whatever it is, but instead she looks at the floor, quiet again, and says, "Misa has a headache."

Light still looks annoyed, but he straightens, picking up the rest of his things and not glancing back at L. "We have to go," he says, flicking out a hand to gesture Misa out the door ahead of him, calling back, "I'll make the call if I have time," in a voice that teases the notion that he'll purposefully forget.

Rem is waiting in the hall outside, arguing hushed and flat-eyed with Ryuk, but she goes quiet as soon as she sees them. A pit of something blessed and strangling with relief lights in Misa's stomach at the way Rem's head turns, the way she looks Misa up and down, as if checking for signs of damage. The moment is calm and freeing and she almost forgets Light is there, pulling the door closed behind her.

The effect is somewhat ruined by L calling, "Enjoy the walk of shame, Light-kun," from his tilted pose on the bed.

 

\---

 

**four hours earlier.**

 

\---

 

He's dreaming something heady and close, but it all flies out, replaced by the saliva in his mouth and the thick, real weight of the pillow against his face and the blanket across his chest and L's back curving under his hand. He's hot and he pulls himself up and over the sheets, breathing and blinking and thirsty, trying to get a grip on reality. It's dark. Someone must have turned the lights off. Maybe it was him. L's skin is cooler, feels less frantic under his fingertips, but not for very long. Light shifts, realizes he's hard against the backs of L's thighs, which explains the tautness in his muscles and the flowering heat in his face and maybe even the wild buzzing in his head. Maybe that's just sleep.

Maybe that's just a sound the world makes.

Light reaches down, feeling himself, adjusting with more stroking than is probably necessary, but then he's 18 and L's shirt is riding up and there's no reason on earth he can think of why he shouldn't jerk off all over L's back. Except maybe the sparkling idea that his front would be better. His face would be better. Him being awake and aware and humiliated would be better.

Light's wearing sweatpants and he's not sure why or how or if he was wearing them yesterday when he'd killed L - and he'd _killed L_ \- not really, not really, of course, but that's semantics, isn't it? But then he looks at L's still body and there's a momentary jerk of reality where his whole mind comes to a halt and there's just - nothing more than a split second - but there's just that moment where he doubts his memory, where it all could have gone differently, where L is lying in this bed next to him without a pulse, without a voice, without legs that will fight when he spreads and shoves between them.

Then everything snaps back into focus and L takes a breath in his sleep, hair puffing out of his face and Misa sighs softly next to him and - and Misa is next to him and that can't possibly be allowed. It makes Light angry in a sparking, firelight kind of way. Makes him want kill L all over again just on principal, want to see Aiber and Wedy's bodies, wherever they are, want to write _Misa Amane_ in his Death Note.

He lies back down, lining up is body against L's, pressing into the warm crevice between his thighs. There's too many clothes in the way and maybe Light should shove his own pants off, if anybody's, but he tugs at L's instead - he's sleeping in jeans, of course, always the fucking jeans, and the material is rough against Light's fingers, buzzing against his skin, and he wants, he _wants_ -

L's body suddenly goes very stiff, and not in the way he wants it too, jerking straight, head moving up, elbow slamming out to catch Light in the ribs. He barely manages to suppress the yelp bubbling at his throat, hand going to his abdomen as he chokes on the breath lodged in him. " _Fuck!_ " he gasps, barely managing to keep his voice low.

He can feel L against him, moving, squirming, trying to shake him off in a flurried, panicked, altogether uncharacteristic scramble, but at the sound of Light's curse he freezes. "Light?" he says, tensed, but stilling at least, as Light gains his air back.

"Who else would it be?" he snaps, as quietly as he can, voice a harsh whisper. Far less seductive than how he'd originally intended to sound when he'd had his hand down L's waistband. L glances at him over his shoulder, dull eyes wide and deadpan, not seeming as if they have any trouble making him out in the dark, and shrugs. Light sits up, crossing his arms, and says, "Oh, a lot of people, I suppose."

L doesn't respond, doesn't even blink at the bait, just looks down at his lap where his jeans have been unbuttoned and shifted down a bit. "I was asleep," he says, blankly, looking back up at Light. "That's assault."

Light glances at Misa to makes sure she hasn't woken - he's not overly fond of this arrangement, but if he shoves her out of bed, she's sure to wake up and squawk at him - then back at L, rolling his eyes. "You did practically the same thing to me yesterday."

"It's always Old Testament justice with you, isn't it?" L murmurs. His voice isn't any lower than usual, but it still manages to seem quieter than Light's.

Light's skin is still hot. His cock is still hard. L looks as appealing in the dark as he does in the low lamplight usually coloring the room, as he had under the harsh fluorescents in the investigation headquarters. Oh, headquarters. Light will have to go into work tomorrow. Back to the daily grind. He wonders who's died while he was out of commission. He hopes everyone has. The city streets are too crowded and there are too many people out there that he has no desire to put his mouth on, who's hair he doesn't want to stroke with soft fingers. They're of no use. The world is all dirty and it's their footsteps spreading the muck.

One day it will just be him and L. One day. Later.

"I want to fuck you," he says, moving back towards L, pressing his length against the mess of sheets and bedclothes between them. He puts his mouth to the edge of L's jaw, right between his ear, sucking softly on the skin. He'd washed most of the blood off of his face before they'd gotten into bed, but his nose still rather aches. It's still feels good, in an unsettling way. Just the right amount of pressure.

He feels the flutter of L's eyelids like a breath against his cheek.

"You tried to kill me yesterday," L says, tone flat and unmoved as Light skates his finger back down to his crotch. It's a lot like a romance novel except for the girl on the other side of the bed and the fact that they both smell rather suspect. In romance novels everyone smells like a fucking rose. Light assumes. He's never actually read one.

He squeezes L, wants him to harp on about the attempt on his life, maybe give a whole monologue on it while being fucked, but he just skips over a catch in his throat, jerking slightly against Light, pressing into his hand, and says, "You killed Aiber and Wedy."

Well, yes. Yes, that's an established fact. No need to bring it up now. Light doesn't want to think about the fact that L has fucked Aiber and L has fucked Wedy and L has fucked whoever else - Matsuda, probably. That seems likely. And now it seems as if he's going after Misa. Light grinds against his hips, shoves his boxers down, too, and is as annoyed as he is turned on. The man just can't sit still, can't stop from throwing himself at the nearest warm body - for 'research,' of course, but then they both know it's some sort of deep-seated emotional disorder. Maybe it was his childhood. Maybe Daddy didn't hug him enough, or maybe he hugged him too much. Maybe Daddy was dead. Maybe L doesn't even have parents and just sprouted out of the ground like some weed that you can't keep out of the garden, and no matter how many times you uproot or spray him, he keeps coming back up. The only thing left to do is set the whole garden aflame. Watch him burn himself out.

Light mouths at L's neck, his ear, the slant of his cheekbone, and doesn't move much, doesn't blink, but his hips press slowly back into Light's hands and the heat is unbearable. Light is going to fuck him whether Misa wakes or not. Whether the police storm the door with guns and frowns and arrest warrants. His father could walk in. God, he wants his father to walk in, wants the whole investigation team to watch L squirming underneath him, made into a completely helpless thing.

L's breaths have gone heavier, his movements stilted by how much he wants it - god, of course he wants it, he always wants it, who wouldn't want Light - and puts a hand to Light's chest and says, "You killed Aiber and Wedy," again, in a low, mottled growl, holding the words up to Light like a shield, like that's going to keep him off.

Maybe if he was less turned on he'd care more, but as it is, he only wants L's legs and close breaths and rough, repetitive movement - like the animals, almost, like beasts, but then not, because the friction is glorious, above anything, and it flashes behind his eyes like paradise, like the garden set afire.

"I've killed hundreds of people," he whispers into L's ear, barely thinking about the words as he says them. "They're nothing special. Neither are you." He squeezes L's cock, shoving his legs apart, and the gutted, flushed look on his face makes Light's head swim. "Take your clothes off."

"The - " L bucks up into his hand, " - bathroom."

He's getting Light's fingers wet.

"Afraid she'll wake up?" he says into L's hair, glancing over at Misa's form, shifting slowly with even breathes. "I thought you said she wouldn't mind? Or was that only when I was sick and incoherent and you could do anything to me?" He runs his hand along L's face, softly, skin fizzing on contact. "Are you sick and incoherent now?"

"You killed them," L says, moving his hips against Light, letting him kiss him.

"Yes."

L breathes out again, looks dizzy, looks pretty. Light wants to melt him down for scrap and keep him locked away in jar. Light wants to set him out to sea, to burn the ashes.

" _Bathroom,_ " L says again, eyes rolling back, and Light smiles and concedes, if only because the sink counter will provide better leverage.

 

\---

 

**four hours later.**

 

\---

 

Light stands in the shower for several minutes before he starts washing himself. His knees feel bruised but when he looks down, there's no marks. Must be under the skin. He can't decide if the sex last night was brilliant or terrible, or if it had even happened. L had acted like it hadn't, but L is like that. Light wouldn't normally doubt himself or his perception of the world, but the last few days have been a fever dream that he's just scrubbing from his skin now. He's missed two days of work, Misa had said, but he feels like the entire bus of existence had passed him at the stop, which is a no good metaphor that L would rip apart if Light were to say it out loud. If L were here.

He shuts off the faucet and towels off, feet cold against the tile. Don't they have a bathmat? Misa ought to have bought one. That's what Misa's here for.

He comes out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and stares at the clothes laid out on the bed. It looks like a suit that L would make fun of. Maybe that's why he'd chosen it.

Misa's in the doorway. "Who's Mikami?" she asks, casually, which of course means it's nothing but.

"Quiet, Misa," he says, running his fingers along the tie. It was a birthday present but he's forgotten who from. He'd started wearing suits more often when L had disappeared. He's told everyone it was because things were getting really serious and he had to be more professional. His suits are always black or dark gray. Everyone else says he's in mourning, and he lets them. He likes that answer better, anyway.

_God doesn't wear black._ Heh.

He's more or less mentally blocked out Misa's presence by the time he feels her finger on his chest - small hands, too small, and gentle and shaking, almost. He looks down, and she's staring up at him with wide eyes and it's an annoyance more than anything else, and -

She leans up on the very tips of her toes and she kisses him and it's not at all like her hands, not gentle or questioning, just on his mouth and on his lips and _right there_ and he freezes. He doesn't know how to react to this. Misa is allowed to stay because she's a good little soldier. She sits and she stays and she does what she's told and - and she's kissing him like she's trying to be L, like she's watched and studied and mapped out the variables - but then, Misa couldn't map her way down the street, so _what is this_.

He shoves her off after half a second, frowning down and not really knowing what to do. Does he hit her with a rolled up newspaper? Put her in a time-out? She's looking up at him like she expects one of those things and is prepared for it - would love it, even. Everyone's always signing up to be a martyr, aren't they? Everyone's always pencilling him in as their doomsday villain.

He's sure she wants him to shove her away, just so she can throw herself back at him, but he does it anyway.

" _Don't touch me,_ " he tells her, stepping back. He sounds less impatient than he'd like and more wounded, like she'd backhanded him instead. Maybe she had. Reality is twisting up on itself these days and he's not sure which way is which.

It's not even been an hour and he misses L.

"You're my boyfriend," she tells him, standing straight and tall, hands on her hips. She'd rehearsed this, of course. He can tell.

She still hasn't showered, is in her pajamas, and her hair is sticking out at unflattering angles. She's so small he thinks maybe he could squash her like a bug. Ryuk is in the other room, juggling apples and making faces at his reflection, and Light wonders if he'd tell Rem. Wonders how Rem would kill him - if it'd just be a simple heart attack or if she'd dress it up, make it _hurt_.

He's going to have to get rid of her before he does anything else. Kill her with love, or something to that effect.

"It's not a real relationship, Misa," Light says, calmly, keeping his voice even. "I don't want to be your boyfriend. I don't want to touch you and I don't want to kiss you. I want your eyes and I want your Death Note and I want you to do what I tell you. And I'm telling you not to touch me."

He steps back, picking up the button-down laid out and holding it up to himself in the mirror. He's waiting for her theatrics, for the squealing and little balled fists, but it doesn't come. He watches her reflection blink and stiffen and look like it might cry - it's not a good look for her - as he puts his shirt on.

"What should I do?" she asks him. She's being eerily quiet, but it's such a relief that he doesn't bother questioning it.

Light smiles placatingly - 'atta girl - still holding the towel closed on his hips, and nods over at the Death Note that he'd retrieved from under the floorboards of L's hide-out. "What you do best."

 

\---

 

Watson hadn't shown up this morning, and that's all wrong. Bert's the one who stays out, gets pissed, and falls asleep against the rubbish bin outside the pub on 5th. Watson's meant to call, to track him down, to do the high and mighty berating, hands on hips and teeth visible through his smiling lips. For all that Watson gets up to - the boys with tape over their mouths, the wriggling - he's never once missed a meeting.

So Bert trudges down to his piss-hole apartment half past eight - brings Mckinley along just in case shit's gone down - and shouts about tax evasion until one of the tenants lets him into the building, because apparently Watson can't be arsed to drag himself out of bed and answer the door.

"You sure he didn't get caught in the raid last night?" Mckinley asks after the third knock, because Mckinley is a fucking idiot. That's why Bert likes him. He keeps birds, pretty cockateels and he's got pictures of all 4 or 8 or whatever amount in his wallet, likes to bust them out and pass them around at parties. Watson once shot him in the foot, so they're not overfond of each other. Maybe that's another reason Bert likes him.

"The raid wasn't on us," he says, knocking again, "and they should have been out of there before it happened, unless the little punk slowed down business." He stops, glances back at Mckinley. "You haven't seen the boy around today, have you?"

"Who?" Mckinley asks, but he's mostly glancing at his phone. Bird-sitter updates.

"The boy," he says, snapping his fingers to get Mckinley's attention. "About this high, choir boy hair-cut, not particularly bright. Pretty thing, though. Just Wat's type." He leers because he knows it makes Mckinley uncomfortable, but it doesn't yield anything but a shrug and the snap of his phone as she shoves it back into his pocket.

"Doesn't look like he's home," Mckinley says. Tosser.

"He's home," Bert says, even though he's not sure either way, and nods at the lock for Mckinley to get to work.

He drops to his knees, slipping out the lock-pick kit with fingers that are used to this and maneuvering it quickly. Bert hears shuffling on the other side of the door. His lip quirks and the superiority is a pleasant spearing sensation in his belly. The sound of them sorting it out sure perked him right up, and it'll be nice to be the one tapping his foot, checking his watch - not that he's got a watch - and berating Wat for his absence.

Then the lock clangs apart and Mckinley falls forward, face knocking against the door. The shitty off-white paint-job is smeared in blood and Mckinley is dead at his feet. Bert blinks, can't move, half expects it all to rewind in the same breath, like a momentary cerebral seizure, but it doesn't. He thinks he should be horrified, the customary reaction dinging like a service bell in the back of his head, but there's mostly just a sense of confused offense. As if Wat had just shot Mckinley in the head as a personal insult more than anything else, a fuck you, a parade to trample all over his one moment of superiority. What does he mean by going around shooting people?

Shooting people. Mckinley's dead. Mckinley's dead and those 4 or 8 birds are all fucked, are going to have to eat each other to survive. Who takes care of people's pets after they die? Bert's never had any pets. He'd wanted a dog when he was 10 but his mum had just said, "You don't want your father to beat the pup, too, do you?" and left it at that.

He should leave, he thinks. That's the next thing. He should leave. What if Wat tries to frame him? What if he tries to take him out next? He doesn't move, though, and the second shot doesn't come.

There's an eye, though. There's an eye blinking at him through the hole where the lock used to be. Pretty, Bert thinks. Pretty and not Watson's. The eye smiles at him and he really should go, go, _go_ -

"So nice of you to join us, my dear compatriot," the eye says.

 

\---

 

The pavement is dark with last night's rain and the investigation headquarters has a romantic, end-of-the-world feel about it today, stark against the skyline, somehow separate from the other buildings. It's nondescript, but it still just doesn't belong.

"Hey, Light!" Matsuda calls from the front door. He's standing there with an unopened umbrella and a coffee, the latter of which he hands to Light when he comes to join him under the outcropping of steel and silicone above them. Light thanks him, doesn't drink it, and pretends like he doesn't notice Matsuda's face when he realizes he's just handed Light his own coffee. He doesn't ask for it back, anyway, and Light doesn't offer. It's almost empty, anyhow.

"Morning, Matsuda-san," he says, smiling, tired of course, but happy to be back all the same. Everything he ought to be.

"I'm glad you're feeling better. What was it, stomach bug? My cousin had it and she had to stay on the toilet for - "

"I'd rather not go into details."

"Right."

"I'm fine now, so let's all just get back to work."

"Right."

Matsuda's discourse is as stimulating as ever, but there's something off about him, different - it's in the way he's looking at Light. Like he's really looking at something and not just existing near it. Light adjusts his collar, tries not to be moved by the fact that he's being studied by a man with the intellectual capacity of most common kitchen appliances and smiles pleasantly.

"Is there something wrong, Matsuda-san?" he asks.

"We haven't found L," Matsuda tells him, pushing his hair out of his eyes and blinking as it flops right back into place. He really needs a hair-cut. And a suit fitting. And a lobotomy. Or maybe Light's just irritated. He still has cuts in his mouth and he smells like Misa's raspberry shampoo and, although Kira hadn't stopped judging while he was out of commission, he'd certainly been less active. There is is scum on the streets and he feels it corroding his shoes.

"I didn't think you had."

Matsuda swallows, nods, looks longingly at his surrendered coffee, but doesn't ask for it back. "Light, can I ask you something? About him, I mean. L, that is."

He's more nervous than usual and Light can't decide whether he's amused or disgusted, but he slides his eyes over to him and plans to allow the line of conversation out of simple curiosity, when a hire car pulls up in front of the building, waxy and overly luxurious, almost gaudy. He watches, somewhat amusedly, as Mogi climbs sheepishly out of it, apparently trying to sever his association with the vehicle in question as quickly as possible.

His face goes blanker than usual when he spots Light and Matsuda watching him from the front steps and Light takes a distant sort of pleasure in that - it's the small things, the things where people are intimidated by your presence, that really make life worth living - but it's all sapped in a moment. The moment he sees the suit.

Just the sleeve of paisley, powder blue and he thinks, _no_ , at the same time as he thinks, _there can't be two men in Tokyo with the exact same terrible fashion sense_ \- but then, no, that can't be right. This can't be right. Aiber steps out of the car after Mogi but that's all wrong, a lie, because Aiber is _dead_. Timothy Morello. He'd written it in the Death Note. He'd written it. It had been the real thing, not a shopping list, and he remembers smudging the ink on his thumb in the frazzled excitement - finally, finally pay-back for the large fingers and the long glances and the curl of hair at the back of L's head, being played with absently, like he's used to it, like it's familiar. Aiber should be buried, gone, six feet under in an overly ornamented grave and shipped back to his home country to lie under a stone that says _Repose en Paix_ in flagrant script. Not here. Not getting out of a car and nudging warmly, conspiratorially, at Mogi's shoulder.

It's wrong, wrong - do-over, try again, is he still in that bed in that room with L's hands climbing on him, swimming in visions and aching with the air around him?

No. No, he's here. The pavement is wet with last night's rain and he's holding Matsuda's half-used coffee cup in his hand and watching Mogi and Aiber approach the building. Light wants to put his hands on him, rip back that ugly blazer and check for seams, check for places where he might have been stitched up and put back together, because how else - how else -

The names. The names were in the system and the names were not too hard to find - difficult enough, but still. Maybe he was meant to find them. Maybe L planted false names because he _knew_ Light could hack the system and he knew that he would go for Aiber and Wedy first. Maybe all the names of operatives are false. And all that fuss yesterday, the escape attempt, the disbelieving anger and boiling upset, it was all just a show.

It was a little performance put on to keep Light occupied.

For what?

Matsuda is still looking at him like he has something to say, but Light brushes him off, takes a few steps down to meet Aiber and Mogi halfway and bows politely. "Mogi-san, good morning. Aiber-san, I didn't know that you were still in Tokyo."

Aiber smile is wide and frozen false - "Why wouldn't I be?" - and Light loathes him, wants to claw his eyes out with a pen and make L watch, make everyone watch and see and _understand_. Immorality will not be tolerated. Fingers in L's hair, fingers up his shirt, fingers on him _will not be tolerated_.

This must mean Wedy's alive, too. Maybe she's waiting just around the corner, ready to spring a trap. Maybe this is all just a trap that L has set, that Light has been running headfirst into since day one. Since the first night and L's lips and his fingers, all over Light, stripping him of his own will and replacing it with this quiet, floundering, half-false smile that L will make in the dark, with lips on his neck. He'd made it last night. He'd done a lot last night.

Light's got no time to panic, though, no time for anything but a pleasant smile returned at Aiber and a nod of his head. "I hope you don't mind, Aiber-san, but I'd like to talk to you alone for a moment."

He looks to Mogi to signal for him to join Matsuda and scatter, but he's not met with the laconic agreeableness that is usually a staple of Mogi's presence. Instead his eyes are calm and firm, his voice even - not accusing, but still Light hears accusation in it - when he looks to Matsuda and says, "Actually, Light, we were wondering if we could talk to you." Aiber appears to take this as a cue, because his smile suddenly jags genuine and he's backing down the steps, nodding his way out, as Mogi speaks.

Light looks to Matsuda, sees the same determination on his face, if more quivering. "Yeah," he says, "we just want to talk about, um - about L."

As Aiber's hire car drives away, Light suddenly finds time to panic.

 

\---

 

**seven hours earlier.**

 

\---

 

L's forehead is against the mirror and he can barely see his reflection, just the water stains on the bathroom sink, the rust around the faucet. Light is in him, and it should be demeaning - Light keeps squeezing his hips, keeps whispering things in his ears that are clearly meant to demean - but, there's mostly just quiet and their breaths and the drip of the shower leak and Light's hair tickling his back and, truth be told, they both know that, "You love me," means something that's more like the inversion, so when Light's harsh whispers turn from dirty to, "You love me, you love me, you _love me_ ," as his thrusts speed up, L's not sure how to rationalize that with the rest of everything.

Everything that has ever happened says, _no, no, this is no good_ , and L likes to pretend to be reasonable, to pretend to do the right thing - but this is stupid and this is wrong and with enough silent nights, enough of Light on him and in him, he can no longer pretend that he doesn't realize that.

They have forfeited all the right choices. Aiber and Wedy are dead and Light has the emotional ability to kill him and if he were truly what they all think of him, L would not stand for this. But he's not, is he? _Great big fakes, the both of them_. The garden is a lie and the infallibility is an even bigger lie.

L is still the boy in the church, the boy by the new gravestone that sticks out among the older ones, reciting his favorite prime numbers to a mustached man with twinkling eyes and a lot of money. He is the boy in the confessional, hand over his mouth, trying not to breathe, trying not to be heard, as he watches the blood spill across the floor, reflecting in the stained-glass window.

He is the boy gathering evidence, forging all the prints and sleeping in closets and saying, _Look at me, I'm brilliant. Look at me and take me out of here and give me something better._

Everyone thinks they deserve better than what they have. Everyone thinks too well of themselves. The only thing that separates Light from the rest of the world is the magical notebook and the can-do spirit. The self-aggrandizing loathing of everything around him? That's human nature.

Or, that's L's nature, anyway.

Light comes shivering, whispering, "You love me," like a pathetic little prayer, and as he slumps onto L, the pain of his unsatisfied arousal sharpens for a moment, before tapering down as Light pulls out. It aches and L's face is warm, his eyes bleary in the mirror, but he's not sure he wants his desire to be fulfilled. The spark is heady, violent, running over all thought and making things very clear and very unnavigable at the same time.

As Light pushes himself up and off of him, L thinks he's going to be left to jerk himself off and wishes Light would go in the other room and stop huffing, at the very least - nevermind that they're chained together; just like the old days - but then he's being jerked around by the hips and Light is on the ground before him, pretty knees against the ugly tile, pretty face looking up at L, and he doesn't bother with his usual sparkly little boyish charm, all bedroom eyes and teasing breaths, just goes straight for it, wrapping his lips around L's cock with the vehemence of an apology. Maybe for coming quickly. Maybe for killing him.

Maybe for Aiber and Wedy.

His legs go weak, body leaning loose against the counter as Light swallows him down, and remembers how Wedy would give blowjobs like a pro, how Aiber would run soft hands along his thighs, trying to ignore all the, " _You love me,_ "'s he feels towards Light just then.

 

\---

 

**seven hours later.**

 

\---

 

On the list of people that Mello would love to see right now, Bert is miles from the top, but - even though Beyond is tying him up, salivating with a lust for more massacre - Mello would rather him be here than not. Even if he dies. He tries to feel guilty about the jolt of satisfaction that he gets from Bert's terrified scrambling, but he can't quite.

He's a bad person maybe - a criminal, a kid in so far over his head he's buried - but at the very least, he can comfort himself with the knowledge that there are people who are far, far worse. One of them is standing the middle of the room, fastening Bert to a chair and humming something that's maybe Metallica and maybe Bach, though the beat is too uneven and interspersed by hateful giggles to properly tell.

Bert is swearing, shouting at B to let him go, and this must be a really shady flat complex for no one to have come by now, unless Watson has got sound proof walls or something. Maybe he has. Maybe he has a reason.

Mello's still chained up on the floor, heart still on his chest and still warm, the blood soaking through his shirt to stick heavy on his skin, but he's mostly gotten used to it by now. Like the first time you hear about death as a kid - it's hard to process, hard to really rationalize with sky and cartwheels and your tiny child fingers - but after a while it sinks in and then it's just normal, a part of the world. The heart on his chest is just a fact of his existence now, like anything else on him - his skin, or his own heart, thumping twice as quickly in his chest, maybe just to make up for the stillness of the other.

Bert is loud, the word _cuntbox_ getting more use than it's maybe ever had before and Beyond is just laughing, just absolutely charmed by Bert's struggles. Mello is equally annoyed by the both of them, but any remaining intimidation that Bert's height and weight and booming voice might have lent him is far overshadowed by B's tinkling giggle and the stuttered tap-tap-tapping of his bare feet on the floor.

"I'm going to cut your heart out," B says to Bert, practically climbing into his lap, skittering fingers crawling all over him. Mello can only see it at an angle but it looks like porn or a snuff film or both. Like watching something while drunk and unable to tell the floor from the ceiling from your hands and your head.

"Get off me, you gangly shit, get off! Do you know who I am? The police will be here any minute! My boys will be here! Get the _fuck off!_ "

Bert's voice is higher than usual and his grammar is better, less posturing, more plain terror. And it is terror. Bert is at least three times as wide as Beyond, if not much taller, and B's barely done anything but tie him up yet, but he's afraid. Very afraid. There's something about B that just makes your skin crawl, your stomach turn. Mello had thought it was paranoia when he'd stared into the dark outside his window and seen the dark staring back, but it clearly wasn't.

Beyond Birthday, if not evil incarnate himself, comes pretty damn close. His presence rings with it. His laugh rings. The phone rings. _Hello. Yes, Roger here. L's gone? Yes. Alright._ The phone is set down.

_Hello, 911? Yes, it's Mihael Keehl here. There's a heart on my chest._

"I'm going to cut it out with a scalpel. I have a scalpel. I have a couple, would you like to see?" There's the clanking of metal and a shake of the floor as B hops around. "This is a rib spreader. Pretty cool, huh? It was on sale, too. I mean, I stole it, but it's the principle of the thing, isn't it?"

There's a heavy struggle sound and Bert's rough breath and B's maniacal amusement and Mello, there on the floor with a heart on his chest and enough time to get used to the situation, just rolls his eyes and calls, "Would you quit it with the heart shit? Just kill him like a normal person!"

"Shut the fuck up, Mello!" Bert yells back, too terrified to bother with insulting nicknames. It's maybe the second time he's called Mello by name.

He doesn't understand, of course. He's not bright in the first place and panicked enough to only lock onto _kill him_ and nothing else, but Mello is trying to help him. Beyond had slit Watson's throat before cutting him open. It doesn't sound like he intends to do that with Bert. Evidently, he intends to take his time, enjoy it. Better to be dead than alive for your own dismemberment. Maybe Mello would be better served to just keep his head down and stay out of the line of fire, but the more time that passes, the more time that he has to think, the more it becomes obvious that Beyond Birthday is not actually planning to kill him. It's a quiet wish in the back of his head, a sneaking suspicion, but one that feels true enough to bank on.

"Seriously," he says, twisting around to look at B. "Why even bother with the heart? You're just wasting time. Don't you want to go to Tokyo? That's what you want, right?"

No matter how he shifts, he can't quite see the look on B's face. He thinks maybe that's on purpose, some specific placement, but then B climbs off of Bert to come stand over Mello, leering down, finger to his lips: L, ugly and reinterpreted. They don't look alike really, except in shadows, in half moments. The nose is all wrong.

"It's metaphorical resonance," B spits, picking up the heart on Mello's chest and dropping it back. It lands with a dull, wet splat. It's heavy, a hunk of meat.

"It's stupid," Mello says, looking up at him. He feels like all of his blood has settled in the back end of his body. He's been on this floor for months or something. He's really fucking hungry.

B smiles, does a twitchy little hair-flip that's more effeminate than it isn't and puts a hand to his hip. "Metaphorical resonance _is_ stupid. Didn't they teach you anything at the academy for children no one wants?"

Mello feels like he's probably being insulted, but then that seems far less important than the heart on his chest or the murderous smile staring upside-down at him from above. Besides, B was one of those same children that no one wanted. And Mello's parents died anyway - they wouldn't - they would have kept him if they could have.

So, when he says, "Fuck you," it's not with any particular heat. He's more tired than he is angry, and even though there's a creeping, frazzled fear at the back of every part of him, he keeps it down, tries not to process the possible eventuality of being cut open, a heart on someone's chest. _He won't kill you, he won't kill you, he won't -_

"Let's play a game!" B squeals, turning on his heel. "Riddles!" He leans down over Bert, who spits at him, a husky breath of phlegm catching B in the face. Beyond just laughs, leaning forward to lick Bert on the cheek, which seems to having more of an insulting effect than his own attempt had. "For every one you get wrong, you lose a hand, and you've only got two, so best to ration them."

Mello blinks his eyes away as B does something that looks curiously like sucking on Bert's ear.

Okay, okay, no problem. He won't do that to Mello. He won't kill Mello and he… probably won't do that to Mello.

"The first one is this," B says. " _God sat in a chair_. Are you paying attention? _God sat in a chair and looked over a neat little list of names, all in pretty rows and it was just so nice. Nice and organized. Killed it right away. God sat in a chair and he killed it right away_." He's brushing his hands through Bert's hair and he keeps repeating it, or something to the same effect, all God and a chair and a lot about names and Mello stops trying to find meaning in the words after a while.

It's not a riddle or some kind of genius puzzle. It's just madness. He's just mad. Beyond is not going to help him and Beyond is not going to know where to find L. Beyond is crazy and he's licking Bert, whispering, " _Killed it right away, God did,_ " over and over and over. Mello's so hungry it's faded out of him, barely tangible anymore. He's tired and he might fall asleep here, a heart on his chest.

"What are you asking me? What's the riddle? Stop - stop, I'll answer it, just tell me what you want - just - "

" _God sat in a chair. Killed it right away_. Aren't you a clever man? Aren't you hiding from it? Don't you know?" He strokes down Bert's face, has a strange, twitty little flair sometimes that sounds more like a joke than it does real psychosis, but then he's got a rib separator and a keen desire to use it, so there's no arguing that there's any _lack_ of psychosis.

Mello would like to fall asleep. Mello would like Beyond Birthday to shut-up. _Killed it right_ , he thinks, _away_. It doesn't even make sense. Maybe it's grammatically correct as a sentence, but it's nonsensical in the context it was provided. God isn't a murderer, anyways, and the little alter boy in Mello is vaguely offended by the implication that he is. Killed it right away, that's -

That's - oh.

"Kira," he says from the floor. His voice is hoarse, either from the yelling or from all the water he's not had in the past however many hours, and he has to say it again for B to hear him properly. "Kira. You're talking about Kira, aren't you?"

_Killed_

_it_

_right_

_away_

That's unbearably stupid. Stupider still that Beyond expected Bert to realize. Or maybe he never did. Maybe he doesn't care. Maybe he gave Mello the edge on purpose. He smiles from his perch on Bert's lap, smiles like a hooker trying to make tonight count and turns, takes Bert's meaty face in his hands, and snaps his neck.

Mello winces, but there's less blood than there could have been and he can't force himself to be overly heartbroken about it. Maybe he should be? Would L be? Maybe he should ask Beyond. Maybe he should stay still and quiet and hope that he fades into the floorboards. Maybe not.

"I thought you were going to cut his hands off," he says softly, after the stillness passes.

There's a moment, right after someone dies, where you don't quite believe it. Everything hangs there, stilted, waiting for them to wake up, for the joke to be revealed and the laugh track to play. Sorry, I was just sleeping. Sorry, I'm still here. The human body doesn't seem so fragile, but it is, and it breaks very quietly and very quickly, and there's no whoosh as the soul rushes out. The chorus of angels is either very quiet or not there at all. The moment passes and then they're just dead, and they don't smile or spit or call anyone a _cuntbox_. It's just flesh that's going to go bad very soon. It's not very much at all.

"I thought you were going to cut his hands off," Mello says, and B smiles and comes down to sit cross-legged beside him, pulling Mello's face toward him by the chin.

"Of course I always keep my word," B said, his grin suddenly smaller, almost sheepish, almost a joke made of self-deprecation. His eyes are bright and not altogether there, but he strokes Mello's forehead very evenly and he's not altogether not-there, either.

"Prayer time," Beyond says, whispering very close to Mello's ear. He's not sure what he'd been expecting it to smell like, though certainly not spearmint, but it fills up the air around him, making it sharp and cooler almost. Beyond Birthday is the ugliest sort of murderer - there are bodies a few feet away in either direction - but he smells like tic tacs. He smells good.

He brushes Mello's bangs out of his eyes and it should be disgusting, but he's tired, he's tired and - "Our father," B begins, "who art in Japan, hallowed be thy charmingly effeminate name."

Kira, he's talking about Kira again.

"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in the land of the dead. Give us our daily death toll and forgive nothing, because nothing is forgivable." He stops, seems to lose his train of thought, the thread of the prayer that Mello could recite from memory and has been able to since childhood. B frowns, and repeats, "Nothing is forgivable."

Then he's tugging at the chains on Mello's hands, pulling him from the radiator and twisting him over so that he's on his stomach again. Mello tries to kick him off, just on principal, tries to knock him away, but it's no good and he's not strong enough and not committed enough. Even if he got away, where would he go? His only friends in the city - and he uses the term loosely - are dead on the floor, and if he goes back to the gang, they'll only want know what had happened, how he'd made it out alive. 

B is here and B wants to go to Japan and B is a crazy person, maybe, but his voice is soothing as he whispers down to the top of Mello's head. Soothing and cruel. He doesn't look all that much like L, but he rather sounds like him.

"God and Kira and all the saints, Mr. Lawliet and his crown of thorns, they will not forgive you." He kisses the top of Mello's head. It's disgusting; it's calming. It's a hint of spearmint. "You're a bad babydoll, just like me." Another peck, light but powered by a violent sort of uneasiness. "You're one of the boys who eat dirt." He tips Mello's face up by the chin. "We're going to be friends, Mihael."

 

\---

 

"It's not Hiroshi Ono," L says without looking up, as soon as Light walks in. "I changed my mind." Looking at Light feels like it might be a lot of work. "It's the girl that's getting to me. Why a girl? What is he trying to tell us? Maybe he just doesn't discriminate when it comes to gender - very kind of him, that - but if he was so blase about his choice of victim, you'd think that the crime scene wouldn't be so exact. No, it's measured, it's all measured. He's no idiot, our perpetrator."

Light doesn't respond and after a moment, L does look at him, eyes trailing him around the room as he moves hurriedly… cleaning up? He's throwing L's old coffee cups and donut boxes into a rubbish bag with an unnerving sort of vehemence, clearing the room with little discrimination as to what he's throwing away.

"Not a mastermind, perhaps," L continues, and there's a wait in his voice, an offer for Light to stop him anytime he sees fit, "but we can't all have Death Notes, can we?"

Light finishes cleaning very haphazardly, tossing the bag down to pull out another, which he begins shoveling L's clothes into. A shirt falls to the ground and Light leans down to snatch it up but misses and has to reach for it again. He looks far me discomposed than L has ever seen him. He wants to pin him down by his pretty-boy butterfly wings and study the phenomenon: the sweat on his brow, the way his fingers curl around the things he touches, holding too tight or not tight enough.

"We have to go," he says to L, tossing a plastic bag at him. He's really going wild with the bags today. "Pack up the files, or throw them away - I don't care. I can print them again. Just, get up. We have to go."

L's brow twitches, but he tries to appear less puzzled than he is. "Go where?"

"Anywhere," Light snaps, the leather on the bottom of his shoes marking patterns into the carpet. He hasn't bothered to take them off. "We have to get away from here, before they have me followed."

"Who?" L asks, thumb going instinctively to his lip.

"Shut-up. Just stop talking. I need to think and I can't think with you talking." He drags a unstudied hand through his hair, shoving it up out of his eyes. L watches it for a moment longer, trying to tell whether Light is legitimately having one of his regularly scheduled mental breakdowns, or is just embarrassed, and settles rather firmly on the latter.

"So, it's the cavalry, then," he says. "Have they found you out already?"

It makes sense that the taskforce would wise up eventually, especially with Watari around, presumably leading them in the right direction. Maybe Aiber and Wedy's deaths had clued them in. Perhaps they had been necessary, a means to end, the only way to achieve - victory? No, definitely not. Being found chained to a bed by a few sub-par police officers, rescued and taken back to the ivory tower where he could recount Kira's evils firsthand - a survivor of terrible personal violence - that is not victory. Soichiro Yagami would apologize on his son's behalf, over and over and over.

Soichiro Yagami would probably actually just put a gun in his mouth and be done with it.

Light glares. "Come on. Get your things in order. You can pretend that you want them to find you, but like I said, we both know it's not like that." He moves close to L, like he's going to touch him, like he's going to cup his face and be very romantic - if unpracticed - and dazzle L with his eyelashes and his finger pads and the huffs of warm breath that stream out with his voice.

He doesn't, though. He doesn't touch. He stands a foot or so from the bed.

"You say a lot of things," L says, sitting up straighter. "I don't know how I should be expected to remember them all."

Light looks at him for a while, then blinks, turns to one of the bags and starts digging out something he'd previously packed away. L knows before he sees, knows before Light smiles this hazy, self-deprecating smile over his shoulder and says, in a pretty, teenage tenor of a tone, "You want me to keep you, don't you, Ryuzaki?"

He moves closer, fills the needle and squirts a bit in preparation, taking L's arm with his other hand and spreading the skin for penetration. L thinks about fighting, but the truth is that Light is not completely wrong. He treats it like a joke because he is afraid that he's wrong, but the truth is that, while L does not want to be kept, he wants to stay.

People are dying all over the world at Light's command and L wants to stay.

Light digs the needle in, pushing down with no hesitation, no particular care for the way that L tenses, breath purposely leveled. He blinks heavy and looks up at Light, wonders what the world will look like when he wakes and says, "You're going to kill me for real one of these days, Light-kun."

 

\---

 

**nine hours earlier.**

 

\---

 

L feels hollow with Light on him. Like his chest cavity has been emptied and the blood and guts and necessary things have been taken out and put away somewhere that he can't reach.

More than a few people have sucked him off before - hazard of the job and all - but this particular blowjob might be the most uncomfortable one he's ever had - which is saying something quite drastic, considering the Tallahassee killer with the two studded lip rings had insisted on getting quite intimate with him before L could properly confirm his guilt. It's not bad, not unskilled, not anything but blinding hot pressure, Light licking and sucking on the head of his cock, nibbling at the base, pumping him and kissing him and more or less worshipping him.

There's a pit in his stomach and this awful coiled energy at the tips of his finger and Light scrapes his teeth gently along his length, teases the way he does so well, the way L had taught him to, and feels it sharp and pressing all over his skin before his hips jerk and his hand slips and he comes with his eyes open, jaw locked and a breath caught in his throat.

Sometimes Light kisses his hips but he doesn't now. This moment and all the moments since L didn't die have been like china, handled gently, set away. Light is afraid of something and it twists itself into swinging overcompensation. No, he can't kiss L's hips, can't sleep the night through without grinding on is back, can't speak in anything but teasing reproach. They broke the skin yesterday, they really did. You can peel so many layers of something that you think there's nothing left to peel, only to realize that you've not even touched the surface.

Human epidermis is thick. Human consciousness is thicker, all a jumble and there are no clean lines. Light is Light and L is L and sometimes it feels like they're the exact same person, but feeling only goes so far and, in the end, there's still that wall of separation, all those layers, all that brain matter and raw energy and those childhood memories that haven't ever come up in conversation.

Is it possible to love someone enough when you do not know them enough? And is it possible that L could possibly be justified in maintaining his current situation without loving Light wildly?

He leans on the counter for a bit, taking heavy breaths, but Light is on the floor and L finds it only polite to join him. Light's face is warm with exertion as he tongues at the inside of cheeks lazily. The room is dark and the sweat on the back of L's neck starts to cool him quickly.

And do any of the justifications really matter? In this world, it's just he and Light, alone, hiding away, renegades. The leaking faucet and the cool floor tiles don't care about his reasons for staying or leaving or neither staying nor leaving. And Light doesn't care to listen to anything he says. So who is L trying to convince?

It's alright to be here, it's alright to care for him, of course, of course - except it's not alright and never has been.

So how do you justify the bad things? Do you fight them, or just pretend to fight them?

He leans over, lips close to Lights forehead and Light's forehead close to his lips, "I'll get you back. I'll get you back for all of it." He's not sure if he means Aiber or Wedy or the murder attempt and he's not sure if he means it all, but it's just a repetition of his words from yesterday, anyway. Yesterday's violence had resulted in a standstill and they need to kick back into motion. Maybe fighting's the only way to do it.

He expects Light to be cruel and uncaring - all the pretty attempts at disassociation - to say something spiteful and quiet and for the night to go on, but that isn't what happens. The problem with Light is that the right thing never happens.

He flips over, pushing up off his back to roll onto L, holding him down with his hips and grabbing him by the neckline of his sweat-soaked shirt and snapping, "You liar."

He pulls on L's hair and jerks his head up, and if L weren't sapped by his recent orgasm, he might be aroused by the position, but as it is there's that uncomfortable tingling in his head - the approving buzz caused by violence of any kind, usually when enacted upon himself. It hums through him and he frowns up at Light with chapped lips.

Light's brow is creased and he looks like he's trying to navigate his next assertion. "You're always acting like I've victimized you." His voice lacks the surety necessitated by the violence, and it makes for a strange blend of vulnerable and power-mongering. "You victimize yourself," he says, and his tone strengthens, like forming the words with his lips makes the more true.

And L thinks, _alright, then_. Let's have this if we're having something. _Own me so I don't have to lease myself out._

He reaches up and cups Light's cheek, hand soft, barely making contact. "Tell me what else I do." It's blatant seduction, almost campy, that porno-line thrill that keeps the set-up from being too real.

Light loves it, though, absolutely eats it up. Of course. The faker something is, the more he attaches to it. Identifies with it, maybe.

"You make yourself into an object," he says, kissing L's temple softly - like kissing his hips, like L has just given him permission to love him by establishing a farce -, "and you offer yourself up for the taking. I don't know why." He kisses L's other temple. "Maybe you were sexually abused as a child. Maybe the only way you can live with the things you do is to take a beating every so often." Down his neck, against his pulse. Neither of them are quite hard but it's a lot like sex anyway. "Punishment or penance or whatever it is. You like to play the martyr. And you fucking love to be somebody's victim."

"And what about you?" L asks, as Light pins his hands. Steady, steady, it's just a game. "How do you live with the things you do?"

Light smiles at him and it's more confident than it's been since they got in the bathroom, since they started touching and looking at one another. "That's the difference between good and evil, isn't it?"

"You never said which one you were," L mumbles.

It strikes him then, with Light's mouth on his collarbone, bangs tickling his chin, that this is a lot like the games that he and B used to play. _"Children always play,"_ Watari used to say, when Roger would raise concerns, _"and there's nothing wrong with a little rough-housing."_

And maybe that's all this thing with Light is. Hormones and loathing and a little bit of rough-housing to work it all out. Maybe that's okay. Light's tongue against his skin tells him that it's very much okay.

"You could have gotten away from me today, but you didn't," Light says, pushing up to look at him. He's all eyelashes and cheekbones, a prime example of a boy, spread out over L on the bathroom floor. "You don't want to go." The kiss is too chaste. "You want me to keep you." The pressure is too light. This might not even be happening. "And I will."

They kiss for a while longer - very romantic-like, with the rust from the panelling in L's hair and the hard tile on his back, can't be too much before dawn - and then fuck again. L is the victim of the night, because that is the easiest thing to be.

 

\---

 

**12 hours later.**

 

\---

 

When L wakes, he's in a car, Light's hands on the wheel and Misa's bubblegum pop blasting from the speakers.

 

\---

**tbc.**

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> end notes: so there you have it folks. on the bright side, let's hope the writing quality can only go up from here. in all seriousness, i'd like to briefly explain what's been going on with me and this fic and why it's been a bit iffy lately, if you're interested:
> 
> so, i started writing this bad boy in october of 2012 (mostly as practice for nanowrimo - getting myself in the habit of writing at least 1k a day) and it just sort of spiraled. i didn't have much of a coherent plot outline when i started and i still don't really, but i did have a number of things that i'd always wanted to see explored in death note fic and never had, so part of the reason this fic has been so meandering and stilted from the get-go was because it was basically self-indulgent wish fulfillment. as i got more readers and got more into the story myself, it became more important to me and i tried harder to make it a quality piece of writing. unfortunately, i think that kind of backfired, because i tried so hard that it made writing it a lot less fun and the less i started enjoying it, the worse my writing got. on the bright side, i had about 40k stored up when i started posting in january, and so for most of the time this story's been updating my writing has been 30k ahead of my posting, which gave me a lot more time to edit and improve things. but for the last month or two, i've been drifting into other writing projects because writing this has gotten quite hard, so even though i edited and posted, i wasn't really writing his fic. so i decided, given my lack of interest, to make a decision. i gave myself two choices:
> 
> 1) take an official hiatus and wait for my inspiration to come back
> 
> or
> 
> 2) force myself to pick this up again and see it through to the end
> 
> well, as you can see from the fact that i'm writing this now, i settled on option two. what can i say, i'm a stubborn motherfucker. and you know what? i'm glad i did. i feel like i can do this. my interest in death note has been reignited lately and i feel more excited about writing 'Nights' than i have in months. trust me, this story will be finished. you have my guarantee. a man's word is his bond and all that. a woman's, too. the only thing is, because i don't have as many things pre-written, updates will probably end up taking about this long (three to four weeks). hopefully you can forgive me for that.
> 
> as for quality control, i wrote most of this chapter over a month ago. i can't promise to be brilliant or anything, but i can promise to do my utmost to make sure future chapters are better than this.
> 
> god, long notes are very long. kudos if you read all (or any) of that. this is, of course, the part where i beg for reviews, but in all seriousness, knowing that people are reading and care about this story means the world to me. but if you'd like to see this story finished, please let me know if you can! it would be unendingly encouraging. that aside, i appreciate all of my readers, even the silent ones. con-crit is also welcome, though as you can see i'm already well aware of the flaws. /jumps out the window
> 
> okay, that's all for now. thank you for reading.


	15. love is

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm going to forgo the WILD APOLOGIES for quality/content/not enough editing (there's no such thing as enough editing when it comes to my writing but i'll get on) and just say a gigantic THANK YOU to everyone who reviewed last time and was so sweet and supportive of me and of this fic. i'd really like nothing more than to finish this and make it as good as i possibly can. lots of stumbling around in this chapter on everyone's part and a surprising amount of task force. i promise more mello and B next time and a bit more advancement of plot.
> 
> that aside, if i didn't respond to your review yet, i intend to do it after i post this, i just want to get this out there before i get distracted by thanking you all ECSTATICALLY. what even is this fic anymore, i do not know, but you all keep it going and keep me excited about writing it and i couldn't be more grateful for every single one of you.

"We are all just trying to be holy."  
\- Snow and Dirty Rain, Richard Siken

 

\---

 

The highway flashes by in the haze of late afternoon half-reality and Light lets up on the gas uncomfortably. He has his license - had insisted to his parents on getting it shortly before he'd entered university - but he's barely done any driving that wasn't simply practice and test-taking. This car still smells new; the seats feel as if they've been sat in very few times before. Misa had said it was a gift from a very rich and influential fan from a few years back - one that Kira had killed off a few months ago. She might have even written his name herself. Charming.

He turns on the CD drive and then, after no more than a minute of bubbly pop music, turns it off again. He flips through radio stations without listening, eventually settling back on the silence, nothing playing but the hum of the engine and L's steady breaths in the seat beside him.

Light is pretending, quietly and to himself, that he knows what he's doing, but he's not truly sure that he does. He'd sent Misa off for the back-up plan, with an address and a bouquet of flowers that she'd deemed suitably romantic. He'd cleaned up the apartment, scrubbed it of any fingerprints and washed it, floor-to-ceiling, of any indication that L had ever been there. They're not going to be found out, probably - maybe. Aizawa had followed him to the house, and even though Misa had been waiting in the car around the back and that's the way he'd gotten L out, they still could have been followed. But If Misa does her part, the apartment will be covered and the team will be convinced. It's a sacrifice, but one he has to make.

One that seems to have been made for him already by Aiber.

_"About L,"_ Matsuda had said, _"we were wondering, well, how close you were to him? If maybe you were more than friends? It's okay if you were! It's okay, right Mogi? But, if you were, well, then that makes everything different, doesn't it?"_

Ide had winked at him, inside the headquarters, where they'd gone to discuss it. Aizawa had watched him with narrowed eyes. Watari's terminal had stayed quiet. But the implication had been there from all sides, and that had been bad enough in and of itself, but then -

_"Your mother and sister went by your apartment when you were sick, but neither you or Misa were there. They called the family doctor, but you hadn't been in. They even asked around with the neighbors, and found that you're hardly ever home, even at times when we know for sure you're not at headquarters. So, Light, what I'm asking, is where were you? And - well, does this have anything to do with L?"_

_"We're not accusing you of anything, of course."_

_"You know you can trust us."_

Platitudes. They're suspicious of him. Maybe not all of them, but there's enough doubt there for it to grow, especially with Aiber and Watari there to push it along. What was he supposed to say? There was no denying the truth of his absence yesterday. Even he couldn't manage to get around that. No, he'd said, there'd been nothing going on with L, but - but he could explain everything if they'd just give him time to work it all out. It's nothing to do with the Kira case, he'd told them, and he thinks most of them had believed him, but not Aizawa, clearly, because he'd followed him. That's fine, though. Good, in fact. That will make everything line up. He'd asked for a day, said that he'd been having relationship problems with Misa and that he needed to fix things with her before he did anything else. And then he could explain.

Then he had gone and talked to Misa. Told her the plan. It's a risk, but it will hopefully shake off any lingering suspicions to do with the Kira case and make all of Aiber's work at shaking the team's trust in him for naught. He just needs Misa to do her part, for the flowers and the long pauses and the little room to all pull together and come to something. 

He just needs a bit of time with L - alone.

They're not too far outside the city and they won't need to go for much longer, just need to find a motel, something low quality enough not to have security cameras or ask any questions of its patrons - like why they're taking a chained up, unconscious man into their room with them. He just needs L out of the way while things get settled. Just a bit of free-time. He'd given Misa the Death Note from under the floorboard, but he'd kept enough pages to maybe be able to do some judgements personally today. It's been too long. His fingers itch and he mentally traces the characters in Hiroshi Ono, but he doesn't move his hands from the wheel. He tries the radio again, and L blinks awake next to him, bleary in the fading light.

"Hey," Light tells him, without looking over.

L sits up slightly, still looking a bit drugged up. "Where are we?"

"In a car," Light says.

"Yes." L blinks. "Why?" 

Light doesn't respond. He doesn't know how to put it without seeming… weak, maybe. Is he afraid of L seeing him as weak? Doesn't L already?

"Light," he says, and Light presses down on the gas, braces himself for the questions, the demands, the - "You tried to kill me." L's voice is very quiet.

Light finally looks at him and it's - it's not what he'd expected. He looks at the clock - it's been three hours since he'd injected L, which is an hour short of a proper sleep cycle and the amount L ought to have been out for, given the dose. Not that it matters, really, but - is he still drugged? His eyes are hazy and he's slumping slightly to the side and he looks… resigned. Is that how one is supposed to feel in these situations? Resigned to the kidnapping, to the attempts on their life. Resigned to love.

Maybe Light's expecting too much. Maybe L's not offering enough. His body has been so covered in masks lately, seeing him bare is like staring down a well. There is so much more there than surface. _"You tried to kill me."_ It sounds like weakness. Light's not sure what to do, or if he should even touch it.

"Yes," he says, eyes ahead, "we've been over this."

L blinks at him and he does it slowly, like it's an action he has to put effort into. He must still be drugged up. "But I mean, you actually tried to kill me." He says it with this air of disbelief that Light wants to trace the seams of, checking for wires. It sounds like the kind of thing that L would pretend to say, while actually saying something else.

No, no actually is sounds like the kind of thing that _Light_ would pretend to say. Is L making fun of him? Should that even be a question, or should he just take it as a given? All things aside, he of course isn't being genuine.

"Did I hurt your feelings?" Light almost snorts, laughing it off. The silence spreads out, following them down the road, and he's almost tempted to turn Misa's awful music back on.

L looks out the window. "Don't be cruel."

That's… new. That's new, right? "What is this? Are you still out of it or something?"

"No, I'm not, actually. Which is strange, isn't it?" L rolls his head, looking over at him, eyebrows raised, but his pupils are clear and cognizant. "I'm trying to be honest. A novel concept, I know, but I'm tired of being drugged and dragged around by you like an animal, and waking up in rooms and cars that I don't recognize. And I could stop it, we both know I could stop it, but I haven't, have I? It's because I can't be honest."

Light blinks, lets up on the gas, eases his grip on the steering wheel. "Honest about what?"

"About what this is. About what you are." He smiles thinly and there's a tiring emptiness to L like this. His eyes are crinkled like he's been laughing or crying, but Light's been with him the whole time and knows he's done neither.

He feels agitated but he doesn't know why. It's not annoyance at what L's saying - although he's being childish and ridiculous, as usual - but just a strange teething under his skin, like he's forgotten something important or left behind a valuable. Like maybe the world is ending somewhere else and he's skipped out on it for a day at the park.

"Why shouldn't I be cruel?" he asks, speaking directly to the windshield. He wishes it would rain. This is a rainy day. "You always are. You treat me like - like I'm less than you. Like I'm stupid."

Honesty, then, if he wants it. Light doesn't know why L is acting like this and he doesn't care, he knows he doesn't care, but it just grates on his peace of mind, makes him fidgety and unable to concentrate. What is he getting at? What is he _playing_ at? Should Light really have said that, or did it come off as too needy? Oh god, L's going to think that Light is desperate for his approval and get all obnoxious and use it to his advantage to -

"You're not stupid." It's blatant. He's almost really smiling. It cuts into Light and his mind latches onto it without permission from the rest of him. Since when is _not stupid_ praise, anyhow? Especially when L follows it up with, "You're young."

Light's brow crumples and everything in him shifts. "So what? You were eight when you solved your first case."

"Six," L corrects, nibbling at his thumb.

"Six," Light repeats, merely as a formality.

"And," L continues, "if I met my six-year-old self now, I'd be a lot crueler to him than I am to you."

Light would cross his arms about now if that wouldn't end in a car wreck.

"Why?" he asks.

Probably because L is utterly self-loathing on some level. There's another level where he thinks he's the most brilliant thing to ever step foot on planet earth - or maybe it's just another facet of the same level. He knows all of L's parts, in one way or another, he just isn't completely sure how they fit together to make the whole. He knows the whole, too, inside-out. Especially inside. Because they fuck. Because Light fucks him. Whenever Light gets annoyed with him like this, he just reminds himself that he fucks him and it makes him feel better. Well, no, not really, but at the very least, it conjures pleasant visuals.

L doesn't respond, just looks back out the window and Light sighs. He feels like he's having a relationship counseling session by himself. "You know, L, I like the game. I like playing with you. But we were closer before, when I wasn't even myself."

Okay, okay - honesty. It's alright. It's not like L can walk out on him in the middle of the road. He's not going to leave. He can't leave. Though they shouldn't be far now. He's passed a couple of hotels since L's woken up - there are a lot in this area - but they all looked too nice, the kind of place where their presence would be questioned.

L is chewing at his fingers. He might be hungry. He might just be putting the tick on. Hell, he's probably putting the whole conversation on.

"Maybe that was you, and it's now that you're not yourself," he suggests petulantly. It sounds petulant to Light, anyway, who's foot trips on the gas, pressing down harder.

"Is that what you're holding out for?" he snaps, because, for some reason that he's not sure how to examine, the idea of that boils through him, slowly, heavily, _painfully_. "That person? The wide-eyed innocence?" He doesn't care, of course, he doesn't care - except, no. No, he does care. He can see why L might feel that way, but he - he doesn't want him to. "I'm not innocent. I've killed a lot of people. I'll never be innocent." He turns his eyes on L. "Are you okay with that?"

"Of course I'm not okay with it," L tells him, watching the cars that pass them in blurred lines of dark blues and reds and greys. "I'll never be okay with any of this." The sun is setting behind him, the fading light catching in his hair, and it looks like the end of the world out here. But it's not. It's just a conversation. 

"Light," L says, turning sharply on him suddenly, like he's re-thought his answer without changing it, "it's all word games and rhetoric and tripping around one another, rocking from love to hate, and do you know why?" He asks it like a question but he doesn't leave time for an answer. "It has to be a game, because if I look at you and what you are and what… being with you - god help me, we're getting into humiliating territory here - makes me, I can't stomach it. It's all wrong. We can dress it up however we like and we have, but the bare facts of it are that we are fucked." He looks back out the window. "I hate what you do. I don't want you to do it. I don't want to be star-crossed lovers that act out the roles insisted upon by the tragedy in your head. Your kingdom is stupid and I don't want you wasting your time on it."

He's slowing down now, or speeding up in odd places, slipping on his words off into different directions that he might not have even intended. _What's the game?_ Light thinks, and stiffens to wonder that there maybe isn't one. Honesty. Is it the drugs? It's got to be the drugs. Why else would L say these things to him?

"What I truly want," he continues, looking back to Light like he can't quite help himself, "is for you to understand the flaws in your plan, give it up, and come work for me. Or with me."

He stutters it all out, like a botched love confession, a failed prom invitation. _Honesty_. What a stupid word. What a stupid concept. Why is L doing this to him?

"That's never going to happen," Light says, fingers gripping down into the soft leather of the steering wheel. One jerk and they would go tearing through the shoulder, down into the grass and the leaves and the trees. A single twist, and _boom_.

He blinks and erases his fantasy of release from the compulsion of destiny. It's gone. It never happened. He had never thought it.

L's not quieting, though, and he's not letting up. His voice is only getting louder, in fact.

"Why not? It's idealistic, sure, a silly thing to think, but it's out there now, isn't it, so why not? You were angry with the world and you felt like you couldn't make a difference, and then you were handed a tool to do exactly that. No wonder you did what you did." He shifts, looks across the car. "But I'm handing you a different tool. I'm handing you me - euphemisms aside. Why don't we forgo the struggle? Why don't you just take it?"

And Light, he understands. Not why L has chosen now of all times to say this, to make this offer - maybe because of the attempt on his life, maybe because of Aiber and Wedy, maybe he's just tired the way Light is tired - but he knows what he's saying. _It could be easy. I could have you and you could have me and it could be painless._

That's how is looks to L. But that's only because it would be painless for _him_.

Light speeds up, passing a particularly slow car ahead and shifting into another lane.

"That's a complicated question to answer," he says, after a moment, "so let me ask you something instead. Why don't you be Misa?" L blinks at him a few times and Light catches his look of concentrated detachment in a quick sideways glance, eyes going immediately back to the road. "Why don't I kill her and you take her place as my second, as my protector, as my love-struck princess?" He pauses, pulling to the left to turn into what looks like promisingly decrepit stretch of road. "Why don't you sacrifice everything that you believe in and have built your life on, and hand it all over to me?"

An eye for an eye and all that. That would be painless for Light. He feels no attachment to Misa - would have to get around Rem, but he's sure he could manage it. It would be the best possible solution for him. But he, unlike L, isn't naive or blatantly uncaring enough to actually think that seriously suggesting such a thing would lead anywhere good. Joining him would gut L.

Just like giving up the Death Note would gut Light. There is no possibility of partnership. One of them will always have to be the prisoner of the other. And L knows that, so why is he -

"Light - " he starts, softly, suffocatingly. He's being condescending again. It's the sort of gentleness that Light, without his memories, would have taken at face value.

"No, okay," Light says. "You're not right." Deep breaths, deep breaths, honesty. That's the game today. Honesty. "You're not completely wrong, but what you do as L and what you stand for isn't right either, and I'm not joining up with the same corrupt regime that I've been trying to tear down from the start." And that's the crux of it, really. It'd be one thing if L was actually the figure of justice that he pretended be, but that's just a pose, a headline for the papers to keep the public believing in him, the world's law enforcement depending on his expertise.

L's justice is only a cover sheet for what is, at root, his own personal brand of violence. Self-sacrifice, self-immolation, self-denial and self-victimization. It's all about the self, the man and not the letter. Solving cases is just the way he keeps his emotional disorders filed in neat lines, how he keeps his head on straight - or as straight as he can get it. That's the difference between them. Light actually wants to make the world a better place, actually wants to save people, clean things up, strive for good. L just wants a distraction.

And… Light is L's distraction for the moment. That hurts. He can't tell if it's true, but it hurts anyway.

L tips his head the side, fading in and out from bleary to pin-sharp. "And I won't join up with you, either, so where does that leave us?" he asks, voice gone back to the usual dull tones. He's not really asking anything. He's just making noise.

Light frowns and realizes too late that the honesty from a moment ago had been actual honesty. It'd been hard to tell in real time, but now that it's gone - replaced by the emptiness - it's easy to see. He looks at L, but his expression is solid, unmovable.

He'd blinked and missed it. How does he get it back? How does he make L lay out all of the true, silly, idealistic things that he wants? How can he have that? Light wants that. He wants it.

"Here," he nods, turning into a small, slightly dilapidated motel parking lot. "We'll stay here for the night."

 

\---

 

"I know what Aiber-san said, but do you really think Light is Kira?" Matsuda stares up at Shuichi with wide, genuine eyes. "After all the proof we have that he isn't?"

Shuichi pinches the bridge of his nose - he doesn't know, he really doesn't know - but L's gone and Light's gone off on an emergency relationship retreat with Misa - which is suspicious, that's suspicious, isn't it? - and they haven't yet let the chief on about the newly discovered secret apartment - it could be nothing, it's probably nothing - and absent of any other figure of authority, Matsuda's looking at _him_ of all people as some kind of leader. Which, if Shuichi's being honest, isn't going to lead anywhere good for anyone.

He sighs. "Maybe, maybe not. We can't eliminate anything." He holds open the door to the meeting room and lets Matsuda in ahead of him, nodding to Ide, who's already inside. "But what I really want to know is what Light was doing at that apartment complex. That's not the sort of place Light would normally go. Even if it's got nothing to do with Kira, it still strikes me as shady."

He sets down at briefcase and glances around. Good, good, the chief's still out to lunch with his wife. They'd convinced him to take a few hours off, said the stress wasn't good for his health - which is true, technically, but it still feels like a betrayal to do this behind his back. 

"What have you got, Ide?" he asks, before Matsuda can make another weak protest.

Ide tosses a stack of files down on the table, crossing his arms and uncrossing them in rapid succession. "It's just a regular low-rent apartment. The landlord - Jun Nakamura, no criminal record - wouldn't say anything except that all the rooms are rented and if I wanted to look around anymore, I'd have to get a warrant." He's jittering with a nervous sort of excitement, but he tries to cover it up with professionalism. Shuichi's been working with him long enough to see it, anyway.

"But Light going into an unusual building isn't enough for any kind of official investigation," Matsuda says, and he's not wrong.

That's the thing about Touta, he's rarely straight-out wrong - just painfully naive.

Mogi comes in while Matsuda is speaking, holding several files and moving in his stiff way. "That's why I sent Aiber over," he says, somewhat sheepishly, even though his voice is loud enough to make everyone look over. Mogi always speaks as if he's reading off lines, like a robot that's been programmed with shyness and firm duty and not much more. "He and Watari-san, um, questioned the landlord." He say _questioned_ like the word upsets him and only blinks at Ide when he protests that he'd already done that. " _Thoroughly_."

"And?" Shuichi asks, snapping his fingers to avoid the chit-chat.

"Apparently almost all the tenants are long-time renters," Mogi says, "it's only the apartment on the basement level that's recently been leased out. He doesn't know the name of the tenant, only that a man matching Light's description comes by the place every few days, and occasionally someone else - someone he claims he's never gotten a good look at - stops by." Mogi looks down at one of the files, fidgets his large hands awkwardly. "Other than that, he says that he's pretty sure the apartment's unoccupied most of the time, since he's never seen anyone else come or go."

"That's a bit weird," Ide says, hand tapping on one of the desks, not that it needs to be said.

"What's he doing in there?" Shuichi murmurs. "And who's the other person?"

"It's probably none of our business," Matsuda says, puffing it out under his breath, but he's frowning now, just as curious as the rest of them.

"Maybe not," Shuichi tells him, "but he's definitely hiding something. On the slight chance that it could have anything to do with Kira, we have to investigate." He looks around. "Just, no one tell the chief, alright? Not yet. We don't want to worry him. Maybe it's nothing. We'll wait for Light to come back from his trip with Misa and then confront him on the subject. Until then, we'll just continue our usual work."

The rest of the investigators nod and it's just about settled, and then the door is pushed lazily open and Aiber strides in, looking like a disheveled beach-wear advertisement in the middle of November. The first thing Shuichi thinks is that he must be cold. The second is that he's about to stir up something, and it's not going to be anything good.

"Hello, gentlemen!" Aiber announces, buoyant and possibly drunk. "Who wants to go on a tour of Yagami junior's secret apartment with me?"

They all look around at each other, not sure how to respond. Most of them like Aiber just fine, but he does upset the harmony of the team a little bit. It's not that he isn't friendly or competent, he's just… excessively western.

Finally, Matsuda says, "Uh, I thought we needed a warrant."

Aiber smiles cheaply at him, fiddling with the lining of his rolled up shirt-sleeves with one large, errant finger. "Nakamura-san changed his mind. Watari can be very convincing. The elderly have a certain charm about them, don't they?"

"He also has a sniper rifle," Mogi says, quietly - which is strange, maybe. Mogi doesn't usually say anything, if he can help it.

Aiber's smile only grows. "That, too."

"Aiber-san, that strikes me as being unethical," Shuichi says, but more as a formality than anything else. He's curious, itching to find out what's going on with Light, and - honestly - he needs something to do. They all do. Ever since L disappeared, the case has gone cold. Aiber and his… somewhat inappropriate insinuations about L and Light, unnecessary as they might have been, were the only bits of information of any notability to come by them in weeks.

"L would have done it," Aiber counters, standing up straighter. He doesn't look like he's shaved recently, but there's still a stateliness to him, even in disorder, that commands attention among the rest of them. It's something Light has, something L had, too. Something that Shuichi himself is lacking. "But L's not here, because Kira's done something with him. Maybe killed him. And if Light Yagami is Kira, are you really going to let him get away with that?"

The rest of them glance about at each other, and Shuichi can feel it, that pull, the urge to get excited, to get angry - the drive necessary to solve a case. But, then there's the part holding them all back. Nobody _wants_ Light to be Kira, or to have anything to do with him at all. Except Aiber, obviously. Aiber who's probably just - is jealous the word? Because of L? Thinking that makes Shuichi uncomfortable, so he stops thinking it.

"Whoa, we're getting ahead of ourselves here, aren't we, guys?" Matsuda says, sheepishly rubbing at the back of his head, the way he always does when he's nervous. "It's probably all just a big misunderstanding. Maybe, heh, Light's just bought an extra apartment for his hair-care products."

He's trying levity, trying to be the comic relief the way he always is. It doesn't work.

"Matsuda, this is a serious situation," Ide tells him. "Be serious." Mogi looks at his shoes. Shuichi doesn't say anything.

Matsuda puts his arm down, looks at his feet. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Aiber tells him, slumping there. He usually reminds Shuichi of an overgrown teenager, one of those unbearable trust fund kids he'd known back in school who hang about the world as if it's their private lounge, but now he looks oddly serious. "We need to see this situation from every possible point of view. Who knows what could happen? We ought to try and prepare for everything. That's what L would do."

He's stern, but kind. Like the chief. The way any leader ought to be. Shuichi should maybe be annoyed by having his position of authority snuffed out from underneath him, but mostly he's just relieved. If Light isn't Kira, he doesn't want to be the one who gives the order to investigate him. And if he is - and that's a whole minefield of ground-shaking possibilities there, that is - Shuichi thinks he still doesn't want to be the first to know.

 

\---

 

Teru's secretary brings the flowers in with an abhorrent little smirk on her face. "Tsuki, huh?" she says. "Is she cute?"

Teru doesn't know what she's talking about, doesn't know why she's standing in his office with a bouquet of roses when he's told her twice that he needs the files on the Shikamaru case as soon as possible - incompetent woman - and it doesn't even register that the flowers are for him until she's already clicked her impractical heels out of the room, leaving them in a vase on his desk. He has no idea what this could possibly mean - is it a threat? Is someone playing a practical joke?

And then he remembers. Tsuki. Moon. That's how Light Yagami spells his name. _Moon Night God_. Teru hasn't yet been able to decide if he thinks it's beautiful or over the top. He hasn't yet decided the same about Yagami himself.

He looks back at the roses. There's a card.

 

\---

 

L keeps his chained hands under a jacket as Light pays for the room, and if the clerk gives them a scathing look for purchasing one room with a single bed, it's quelled by the tip Light slips him, along with a few mumbled words about _discretion_. Not that it will do any good. As someone who tends to interview hotel clerks after the fact to make his living, he finds that no matter how much any criminal can pay someone to keep their secrets, he can always pay more, and discretion is never kept up for long.

Light takes him into the room, chains him to the bed, moves as if he's going to brush L's hair out of his eyes but doesn't, and then leaves. He comes back a few minutes later with a bottle of sake and sets it down on the bed between them.

"I couldn't find cups."

"Don't want to fuck sober?" L says, cocking a barely visible eyebrow.

He's doing it again. He pretends to himself that he doesn't know what he's doing, but of course he does. Beyond used to point it out all the time when they were kids, and then later when they were older. Most especially after they started fumbling in dark rooms and beating up on each other with their cocks out.

_"You bare your soul through self-deprecating little taunts. You want to tell me how you feel, but you don't want me to know that you want to tell me. I do know, of course. I can always tell when you're hiding your skeleton truths, and exactly where your hiding them."_

L had ignored him, but L had understood that he'd been right. He hadn't even realized it until B said it. He hated whenever Beyond knew something he didn't. He'd beaten him with a shovel once. Had caused internal hemorrhaging. It hadn't been that day, but L thinks of it now anyway, about B lying on the floor, looking up at him, laughing, saying, _"Marry me, Lawliet. I'll buy you a white dress."_ He'd just kept laughing as L had just kept hitting him, giving him this look that -

It's a look that Light has never given him. Not Aiber, either, or dear Salina in Argentina. It's not a look he likes to remember.

"Who says I brought you here for sex?" Light asks, and he tries to smirk but abandons it halfway through. He's starting all these gestures and then stopping them. He's unsure. It's from the conversation in the car, L is sure. Honesty. 

L can't even tell if he'd been honest back there. He hadn't expected Light to say yes to his proposal, hadn't expected it to lead anywhere, he'd just wanted to feel better. He's sick of them tumbling over each other, like a race, like a battle where they're only sometimes fighting on opposite sides. He's tired of being drugged. He's just a bit tired.

"You bring me everywhere for sex," L counters, and Light rubs his hands together. L sighs, supposes that if Light is going to go all nervous and teenage, he'll have to be the adult. He holds out his unchained hand. "Alright, then. If we're not going to fuck, let's at least drown out all functional thought processes by consuming copious amounts of alcohol."

Light does smile then, but quietly, and takes a small drink before passing the bottle to L, who takes a larger gulp. He's not worried, though. As evidenced by the last time they'd done this, he can hold his liquor much better than Light can. He can do most things much better than Light can - and yet he still wants to run his hands along his tiny, golden arm hairs and lick his jawline and talk metaphysics with him in bed at 2 in the morning. He wants these things and he knows how to not want these things, but he's not sure it isn't better if he does. Human desire is a strange thing. He takes another sip.

Light takes the bottle back and drinks longer, deeper. "We'll have sex afterwards if you're so desperate for it."

"And if you can manage not to pass out."

They smile minutely at each other and it's something like nice.

"And that," Light says, nodding gently. "But first I want to do that honesty thing again. I want you to tell me everything you know."

And now the alcohol makes sense. Loosening the tongue and all that. L would personally rather just loosen their clothes. "General knowledge? Well, there's a dinosaur called the Micropachycephalosaurus, which has always stuck me as bit ridiculous. Oscar Wilde's last words were, suitably, to do with the wallpaper, and about an hour before the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001, a fifteen year old girl was drowned in Queens. She got absolutely no press coverage. Not a single letter of print." He takes another long sip. "Hmm, what else?"

He half expects Light to get annoyed and half expects him to shut him up with tongue, but he does neither, just takes the bottle back with a slight smile. "Not general. Specific. I want to know what you know about the Death Note."

L slumps, playing his hands along the rough material of the bedspread.

"I'd wager you'd know a lot more than I, if only in that area."

"You'd be partly right." The smile again, but more pained this time, and then he's reaching out and taking L by the wrist, cupping his hand like a lover. L half expects him to drop off the bed and onto one knee. To pull out a ring. It's a shame L hasn't got a shovel for the occasion. Light's fingers are warm and they're gentle on his skin, which is different from all the grabbing and pulling he's used to. He kisses L on the knuckles, one by one, and L half wants to hit him, to beat him senseless, but the other half wants to close its eyes and accept the situation for what it is.

_"You're in love, sugar. That's the problem here."_ B's voice is either completely alien to the moment, or else fits in very well. L can't decide.

"What did you talk to Rem about? What was the plan?" Light says softly. He thumbs L's wrist bone. It's probably a trick. It's nice anyway.

L sighs his eyes closed and then blinks them back open. "Fine. On the condition you tell me exactly what's going on, and what you plan to do about it." Light begins to nod, but L holds up a finger, back still arched low. "And - in what way I can help."

Light looks at him solidly for a few seconds, still not having let go of his hand. "Help who? Them, or me?"

L flexes his wrist, twisting it out of Light's grip, and reaches for the bottle. "I don't know," he says, taking a sip. "I haven't yet decided."

He likes the look that Light gives him then - wide open and dangerous and passionately, _stupidly_ adoring.

 

\---

 

An hour and a half and a lot of sake later, they're spread out diagonal across the bed, and Light - for what L considers a very offensive reason - can't stop laughing.

He sounds like a little boy, like L could be tickling him torturously. He's in absolute raptures, drunk and flushed and handsy in a way he hasn't been since he'd gotten his memories back. "You," he starts, but it tumbles away in another wave of giggles, and it takes him a bit to catch up with it again. "You're going to make Misa fall in love with you? Oh my god." He puts a hand to his forehead. L thinks he might actually be crying.

"I don't see what's so funny," he mumbles, smushing his face against Light's forearm and reaching around for the bottle without any particular success. "People fall in love with me all the time. They make a habit of it." He's afraid he might be pouting slightly, but it makes Light laugh harder so he keeps doing it, anyway.

"I know, I know, it's just Misa - can you imagine? Her following you around instead of me - I - actually, that would be kind of a relief." He wipes his eyes and blinks at L, humor still obvious in the curves of his face. "You should do it."

L scratches at his hair, then realizes that he's not touching his own head, but Light's. Their limbs are so all over each other, it's hard to tell them from the other. Light might just be the only thing that actually exists in the world. Welcome to paradise. Christ, that's possibly terrifying. And possibly a relief. It's all possibly's these days. There is no 100% left, if it was ever there to begin with.

"I don't know that I can," he says, looking at the ceiling, "or that I should. I just needed to get Rem on my side."

"She'll never be on your side. She's completely Misa's. She's in love with her, do you believe that?" Light laughs, but in a way that's less pure amusement and more there to fill the space. "A Shinigami in love with a human. And a human like Misa, of all things. It'd be like if Ryuk - " He stops, looks at L and then smiles to himself, looking quickly away.

"Who's Ryuk?" L asks, even though he can extrapolate fairly well, given the context.

Light kisses him on the temple, fingers playing through his hair. "I'll introduce you two sometime."

L closes his eyes for a moment, listens to the hum of the heating unit. It's cold out today, he'd even heard something about possible flurries of snow from the television in the lobby. Light hates snow. Light is being unsettlingly gentle with him. Or maybe he's the one who's being gentle with Light. It might not matter. He opens his eyes and says, "You still want to destroy me, right?"

Light frowns, shifts a little so he's sitting up. "That's a weird question."

"Don't play dumb with me, Light." He sits up, too.

Light rolls his eyes. "I take you out of your cage for one day and all you want is to go back in, isn't it?"

"I just want to know what the game is, if I'm expected to play it."

"There is no game," Light tells him, and then watches the tips of his own fingers with narrowed eyes, as if he's trying to suss out the truth of that statement. "Honesty, isn't it?"

L huffs, but he's not angry. It's not a logical train of thought that's led him to that, just a feeling. He doesn't feel angry or scared or rife with loathing, and he doesn't know that he wants to force it, and himself into action with it. Inaction is the game today. Inaction is honesty, for now.

He shifts, staring at the ceiling and thinking back over what Light had let drop about what's going on at headquarters - which hadn't been an excessive amount, but then L hadn't expected it to be. They suspect him of something, certainly, although not necessarily being Kira, which isn't necessarily helpful to L at all.

Still, he blinks over at Light, after what might have been a long silence, but not an uneasy one - it's a drunk silence, something that fades in and out with the stars that they can't see through the ceiling - and says, "So they're onto you, huh?"

Light slumps to the side, the side that's closer to L, that warms him in the dim room. His extremities feel cold, like all the heat in him has migrated to the center of his body, ruffling his breathing, warming up the places where Light touches. Like young love, except older and worn out. They should kiss but they talk instead.

"Not really," Light smiles at him, a whispery little tilt of the lips. He laughs to himself at something he hasn't said yet, and then says it. "Mostly they just think I'm gay."

L blinks long because it makes his thoughts easier to process. "You are gay," he says, opening his eyes back up. He can't tell if he's smiling at Light or Light is just smiling at him. There's amusement covering them, here in this room, and it's directed at themselves, at all of their failings.

Everything's funnier when you're drunk. L, of course, is not drunk, and never would be, just on principle.

"Not really," Light says again, airily, like the whole situation is moment away from collapsing into giggles once more.

L snorts, taking the bottle from Light's fingers, which are far warmer than his to the touch. "No?" he asks, before taking a short swig. "My mistake."

The low light falls in uneven lines across the bedspread and when Light looks at him, it's with a self-effacing sort of kindness that aches through L. He tips him up by the chin in a cinema romance kind of way, credits rolling, music rising, and it's slightly hilarious, but in a way that they both recognize and possibly appreciate. Light's hand drops away, knocking L's jaw in the process. "I'd still love you were if you were a girl," he says, unimportantly, like he's trying to make the words as little noticed as possible.

L nods after a moment, because he can buy that, but - "Would you still want to fuck me, though?"

"I don't know," Light says, leaning against him, sunk into the scratchy blankets, breathing soft and hazed. "I'd still want to hurt you, and that's more or less the same thing, isn't it?"

L doesn't know why he kisses him then, or if he even makes a conscious decision to do it, he just does, climbs half on him and presses his lips and presses them hard. It's not like a new case, fragile and unaccustomed, touching something never before touched. Light is familiar to him, part of a pattern, a repetition. And he knows - in the same ignorant way he'd known everything B had told him, everything he'd ignored or beaten with a shovel - that he is afraid of patterns.

Things that become familiar slowly become integral and L's existence is one that needs to be maintained through solid singularity. He can touch everything, but he can't keep anything. Which is possibly why he doesn't so terribly mind being kept by Light.

Which is possibly very frightening. Light kisses back and it's familiar in all the right and wrong ways, and L - he likes it.

Honesty, isn't it?

 

\---

 

Shuichi nods as politely as he can to the slightly-battered looking landlord who leads them twitchily down the steps and unlocks the door to Light's apparent spare apartment. The man doesn't return the gesture, just scurries away as soon as Aiber reaches for the knob, ducking around Ide and past Matsuda's nervous smile as quickly as he can.

It's just the four of them. Mogi had volunteered to wait back at headquarters, in case the chief returned early, and Watari barely comes out of the back rooms anymore, relying on his internet connection for communication. _Caution_ , Aiber had called it. Shuichi suspects he's afraid. The fact that the source of that fear is Light is what gets to him. Light is not a thing to be feared, certainly. He's smart and he's quick, but the idea of him ever doing something to purposefully hurt anyone - it just doesn't compute. The chief's son would never have ended up someone like that. Like Kira.

Aiber walks confidently into the room, as if he expects to find immediate evidence waiting for him at the door. There's none. There's nothing. No furniture, not a single item. Blank walls and open floors, all loosely paneled and obviously cheaply made. The four of them walk in, look around, and then move onto the next door, on the opposite wall. That leads to a long hall, also completely bare, but for the door at the other end. It's half ajar. Aiber looks ready to run at it. Shuichi holds up a hand, motions him back, and moves forward himself, placing a ready hand on the gun holstered to his side. He's fairly certain he won't need it, but -

He almost thinks it's L for half a second, but the angles are all wrong, the posture is ramrod straight and the hair falls in unfamiliar angles. And he's wearing a suit, which more or less clinches it.

He sits at a small desk, nothing on it but a vase of large white roses. There's a made-up bed and a cheap bedside table, but the rest of the room is absent of adornments - no rugs, no knick-knacks, no pictures on the wall. Shuichi fingers his gun as Ide and Matsuda move in after him.

Aiber stands there, frowning, but doesn't speak the way Shuichi had expected him to.

Ide does it for him. "Who the hell are you?" he asks the man at the desk, feet planted in a wide-set, heavy stance. He's ready to fight if need be, and from the way the man's eyes go wide and his quiet stolidity goes frazzled and nervous in a moment's notice, there may be a need.

The man doesn't fight, though, doesn't run. His hands go up like they've just ordered it. "I - " He looks at them, looks at Shuichi who's reaching into his jacket to pull out his badge. "You're the police?"

"Yes," Shuichi tells him, flipping the badge open and flashing it around, so that it's caught by the dim light in the room. "Yes." He puts his badge away, hand going back to the gun. Not that's he's particularly convinced that he'll need to use it. Still, caution is necessary. For all the things he might have expected to find in this room - the thing that Aiber had likely been expecting - an uncomfortable looking man in a suit had not been high on the list. "Now tell us who you are."

"My name is Teru Mikami," the man says, hands still up. "I'm a prosecutor. My record is clean, I've never - "

"Do you live here?" Matsuda asks, quite ridiculously, Shuichi thinks, but then Matsuda's particular brand of ridiculousness is sometimes necessary.

"What? No," Teru Mikami says. "I - I didn't break in, though." He moves one hand down slowly, cautiously, to the pocket of his slacks. "I have a key." He does, in fact, and pulls out a small, silver, run-of-the mill door key, in the same style of the one that the landlord had used to let them in.

Shuichi, more sure of himself now, if not the situation, walks forward to take the key from him, turning it over in his hands. He feels Ide following him, providing the usual back-up. Mikami takes the opportunity to reach into his wallet and pull out his ID, handing it off to Shuichi with nervous fingers.

Shuichi looks it over, decides it's as legitimate as a form of identification can get, and hands it back. "What are you doing here, Teru Mikami?" he says, trying to sound less accusing and more conversational. He knows Mikami's type, has interviewed men and women like him before - jittery and easily spooked and needing constant reassurance of their safety in order to provide any information of value.

"I'm meeting someone," Mikami says, pushing his glasses up his nose. He keeps looking at the flowers - soft, beautiful things; they're all wrong in this dilapidated room. They cut the shadows at strange angles. "I'm supposed to be meeting someone." He lifts up his hands again slightly, like an instinctual protective action. "I promise I would never do anything illegal. He said to meet him here at seven, but it's been almost 40 minutes, and…"

Mikami gestures weakly at the flowers. Shuichi notices the card, sticking out between the lush green of the leaves. He picks it up, reaching over Mikami, who seems locked to his chair. The words on the card should maybe be expected, but they still rock though Shuichi with a strange reality.

_I want to meet you again tonight, my prince. 7 o'clock._

It's cheesy. Sickeningly romantic. It's Light's handwriting. He'd even signed his name. The whole Kira thing might have been easier to rationalize.

"Light Yagami," Shuichi says softly, even though he doesn't really think the situation needs anymore explaining. "You're meeting Light Yagami?"

Mikami looks at the desk, hair falling in his eyes, and blinks with a resigned sort of embarrassment. "Yes."

"Did he send you these?" Shuichi asks, nodding at the flowers. Mikami inclines his head in the affirmative.

"I don't get it, why would - " Matsuda stops mid-sentence, looks from Mikami to the vase to the bed, and then at Shuichi with something like a blush lighting on his cheeks. "Oh."

It's one of those surreal, distanced moments that come around every so often. Shuichi can see this whole scene playing out before it even happens - the bumbling shock, the averted eyes, Mikami's embarrassment - and it's not so much a kindness to Mikami as it is to himself that makes him want to skip ahead, past the stock reactions, through the whole scene, quietly boiling scandal and all. He knows this is mostly his fault - he'd wanted to come here, to get to the truth, and even though he doesn't regret his resolve, he's sure everything would have been more comfortable for everyone if they'd left it alone. Let Light have his little secret.

But then, there's really no room for secrets on a case like this. If Light's gay, that's fine - no business of their's, anyhow - but he should have known that setting up secret rendezvous would soon attract suspicion. Isn't he meant to be smarter than that?

Mikami is looking at the table.

Shuichi sighs. It'd be best to get through this as cleanly and quietly as possible. "Light's not coming here tonight," he tells him. Mikami doesn't look up. "He's taking a day off. To work on his relationship issues. With his girlfriend."

Mikami blinks, pauses a moment, like he's on the other side of a telephone and waiting for the signal to reach him. Then -

"His - of course. Of course." He stands from the chair, looks at each of them with a firm but self-deprecating twitch of his features, as if daring someone to point out the obvious. He looks at the vase like he's not sure what to do about, looks at the card like he thinks maybe he should pick it up, but only wipes nervously at his hands before nodding and heading for the door.

Maybe Shuichi ought to stop him for questioning, but he doesn't. His wife is making pork buns tonight. His daughter will need help on her homework. Light Yagami's love life is not a business he wants to involve himself in without necessity.

Aiber hasn't got a family to go home to, though, and has a whole lot of involvement in Light's love life as a matter of course, so he steps forward with the demanding sort of energy he'd used to get them all here in the first place, spreading on his inoffensive smile like butter. "Do you meet with Light Yagami often, Mikami-san?" he asks, pleasantly, but in a way that doesn't serve to obscure his vested interest.

"Not - I wouldn't say often," Mikami tells him, stopping, stuttering over the words a bit. "A few times." He looks at the door and then at Aiber, the big, blond obstacle in front of it.

"Have you ever seen anyone else with him?" Aiber asks, doggedly, not looking to give up. "A man, about your height, maybe a little shorter." He waves his hand in the air at roughly L's height. His desperation makes Shuichi want to look away. "Funny looking guy. Black hair. Dresses like a homeless person."

"I'm sorry," Mikami says, with utterly forced civility. "I don't know what you're talking about. May I please go?"

Aiber looks like he's going to go on longer, drag this out, check every corner on the slight chance that L could be hidden away there, but Shuichi shakes his head. They shouldn't even be here in the first place, and Mikami is slipping out the door in the few moments of Aiber's hesitation.

"Poor guy," Matsuda says, watching him go, which is possibly very kind of him. No one else has anything to say at this point.

They check through the rest of the apartment while Ide puts in a call to Mogi to ask about Teru Mikami, prosecutor, but they come up empty of anything valuable on both ends. There's some toothpaste and soap in the bathroom and condoms in the bedside drawer, but the rest is virtually empty, and it's obvious no one spends any extended amount of time here. Teru Mikami checks out and is, in fact, highly respected in his position, even though he'd just begun practicing a few months ago. His record's cleaner than the cleanest of whistles. He's a regular catch. The worst thing that Light is guilty of, from the look of the place, is infidelity.

"I guess we know what Light was using this apartment for now," Ide says when they're done, standing out in the parking lot. Shuichi had considered apologizing to the landlord, but Aiber had told him that an apology implied wrongdoing on their part, of which there had been none - the last part mumbled with a peculiar little twinkle of the eye that suggested he thought nothing of the sort, and didn't want Shuichi to, either. "No wonder the landlord couldn't say who the other person was. It's probably several people." He says it with a straight face, but the amusement is there, lying just under the surface, barley skimming the edges of politeness.

"Several _men_ ," Aiber says, making a point of it.

Matsuda seems to be the only one particularly uncomfortable with the developments, and he paces the length of the sidewalk, hand scrubbing his hair weakly. "If he - I mean, it's fine if he's - you know - and I understand why he'd keep it a secret… " and there's a lot of mumbling and trailing off and obvious embarrassment at the idea - maybe because of the homosexuality, maybe just because of the sex in general - "But just, why is he dating Misa-Misa?"

They really should not be talking about this. Shuichi is not going to participate in this conversation.

"She's got money." Aiber shrugs.

"She's in love with him," Shuichi snaps, abandoning any attempts to stay uninvolved. Aiber's got a few necessary qualities - namely, his in with Watari - but Shuichi won't have him bad-mouthing anyone on the team, Light included. "He probably just doesn't want to break her heart."

"It'll break her heart even more if she finds out about this," Ide says, eyebrows going up, seemingly unaware of Shuichi's attempts to shut this line of conversation down. "And what about the chief? What should we tell him?"

"I don't know," Shuichi says as they reach the car. "I don't really want to have to be the one to - "

"I'll do it," Aiber volunteers, teeth sparkling. He's got his ladykiller smile on. Or maybe man-killer. Either way, it's not a happy expression. He'd been expecting to find something here - L, or any clue about where L could be, dead or alive - but they hadn't.

Shuichi wouldn't admit it out loud, but he's glad. At this point, the only thing harder to deal with than L's disappearance would be L's reappearance, and whatever implications that would bring along. He tries not to think this, knows it's an insult to L's memory, but as they all limp into the vehicle, closing each of their doors with uneven, untamed slams, the thought bobs on the edges of his consciousness, not quite stamped out.

 

\---

 

There's something about the cold that makes Light feel less drunk, which is maybe why he doesn't like it. But L insists on going out into the parking lot on bare feet and Light is too airy and contented to do anything but stumble after him, attaching one handcuff to his own wrist in order to keep the hold and barely remembering to grab the room key.

The wind hits sharp and does a bit of run around with his flutteringly warm body temperature, eventually beating it down so that he's shivering out on the concrete, staring at the mostly broken streetlights of the less than urban parts of Kanto.

_"This is stupid. Let's go inside,"_ Light means to say, but instead the wires cross each other, twisting it all up and suddenly it seems like a good idea to turn to L and tell him, "When I'm through with this world, we can go anywhere. It'll be ours." Which works well for a moment, the empty outdoors pausing with his smile and L tilting his head to the side, curious, considering.

But then he's kicking Light in the stomach with the ball of his foot.

The sky is the first thing that he notices, black and middling grey and virtually starless with all that light pollution. There's a moon up there but he can't see it and he doesn't look for it, because the next thing is the gravel, the little rocks and the scrape on his back, pressing through his shirt and rubbing him raw. He tries to breathe but hacks instead, thinks about standing but not enough to commit to it. A few seconds of coughing and then L is on him, thighs straddling his hips and maybe he's just drunk but maybe he's just angry. Probably both.

"You tried to kill me," L says, voice as rough as Light's, like he'd felt the blow just the same.

Light coughs again and pushes himself up on his elbows. L's balanced on his lap like either a very bad or very good porno, depending on what the intention is. "We've already been through this," he says, even though it hadn't been quite the same unfocused, hazy rush of cold and warmth and L's hair in his eyes and breath on his face.

"I know," L says, "I want to do it again. I want to tell you how I feel, but I want you to beat it out of me."

He speaks softly and casually and without the weight that he usually lends things, the effect he likes to add, the dramatic flair. It's meant to make Light hit him, perhaps, but he mostly wants to fuck him, here on the concrete, half over a painted-on parking space divider line. Or to be fucked by him. It's strange, because Light usually minds that, just on principle, but he doesn't think he'd mind now.

"Honesty, huh?" he laughs instead.

His body doesn't work the way he wants it to tonight and his words are all the wrong words and L's fingers are in his hair, pulling him forward, kissing him softly, and it's a taste of how the world would look without structure or reason or law, and Light wonders why he should bother trying to help people when he could just burn the fields and grow things new. It's all wrong and L could fix it with his eyelids and his sake breath.

That's a lie, of course, but L's hips don't make it feel like one. Love is a developmental disorder. Love is gravel against Light's back and a squinty, achey disgust that feels like euphoria. Tomorrow he will have to fix it and put it back on track and plan and calculate and be very, very brilliant. Most days he has to put love on a shelf, but he brings it out for nights like this, because they're a joke, a game he and L play with each other. They're not even really in love, probably, but then sometimes they are simply out of necessity. Whatever L is to him is something separate, though. Love is heaven and the angels and their blaring trumpets and their bright, white light. L is too quiet for that.

"Or a very good lie," L says, humming slightly, tickling Light's jaw. "I'm a very good liar."

L is telling him a lie about the truth, or something, but Light can't follow it and doesn't want to, so he pulls back and hits L in the face, because that's what he'd asked for. His knuckles collide with the sharp jut of his cheekbone and it _hurts_ , but there's a squirming animal rage that delights in the pain, and it's something that Light keeps locked down at all other times, aside from the fights and the sex and the scrawls through the notebook.

L moves with the blow, but he looks pleased, eyes closing like he's reveling in it. Maybe it's masochism and maybe it's just some weird penance and maybe it's nothing that makes any logical sense, but Light likes it because L likes it. It's not hurting each other, not really - although they do do a lot of that. There's a sort of appalled shock and humiliation when you're hit all of a sudden, by someone inconsequential, someone you hadn't expected to hit you. But a punch from someone important is something important. Is that a ridiculous thought? It's probably the sake. It's like a kiss only it feels different, but the general sentiment is the same.

_Here, this is for you. I am giving it to you. You want me to hurt you and I want to hurt you and I want you to hurt me and you want to hurt me._ It's an exchange, a declaration.

He hits L again and L takes it, almost smiling, definitely getting something out of this, and Light wants some of it, too.

"Okay, hit me back," he says, grabbing L around the ribcage and pulling him back up. L isn't in his lap so much as knelt upon him, hand to his cheek, eyes wide and pained and breathing through it. He glances up at Light. Light smiles, imagines the pain in his cheek and wants to recreate it in his own. That's fucked up, probably. Most likely. The gravel is still digging into his skin. "I killed you," he murmurs, voice already harsh in anticipation, "so hit me."

"I didn't die," L says, body tensed, muscles lining up with Light's.

"I know, but I killed you."

Light had never considered a scenario where he'd be requesting his own physical assault, but from L it seems natural. Yes, let's beat each other in the parking lot of a sleazy motel. Yes, let's beat each other. One of them is clearly an abusive boyfriend - possibly both of them. Or L is - L is bad and Light is just punishing the wicked. Maybe the other way around? He doesn't know. It gets complicated. L hauls off and slams him back into the ground and punches him in the face and he can feel the scramble of endorphins and taste the blood in his mouth, top lip ripping on his teeth, skin throbbing. It hurts with a kind of necessity. L hits him again, so it should figure that he's the bad guy, but maybe not. Maybe right now, in this particular scenario, they're on the same side.

L keeps hitting him. Once, twice - 

"Stop, okay, stop!"

The blood from Light's nose drips hot over his lips, getting in his mouth. And maybe this is necessary, but it hurts in a way that feels excessive and when he says _stop_ L doesn't stop, and that is why they can never really do anything but chain each other to beds and beat each other in parking lots. Light probably wouldn't have stopped in his position, either.

It's just a few extra, and then L's fists drop - there's blood on them, Light's blood; it's so dark out here it looks like oil - but his face throbs and he groans when L touches his cheeks and _why_ did he ask for that? He regrets it, wouldn't do the same again, but he's still proud of having done so. Something reckless and freeing and violent. He'd withstood it. He can withstand anything that L throws at him.

He falls back on the gravel and L falls forward with him, cupping his face, wiping away his sweat. There's a dirty bathroom in their room and he knows that in a few minutes they'll be inside, L drawing a bath to wash him clean.

But for right now the cold air cools the blood on his face, on L's hands, and both of their breaths even out. Light could almost fall asleep here, if he didn't have a world to save tomorrow.

"I knew a boy like you once," L says to him, after a moment.

Light's instinctive reaction, of course, is, "Liar." He breathes the word out through his mouth, because his nose stings. "No, you didn't."

"No, you're right." L's hand slips into his and they're sort of collapsed next to each other and anyone taking a late nigh drive could run over them and wouldn't that be a lovely end? "He wasn't like you, but he was like what you are to me."

Light's harsh breaths have calmed down some. "And what's that?"

L grasps his hand harder, pulling him into sitting position. He doesn't smile, but his expression looks kind - and Light remembers this feeling, from before, back without his memories. L as the leader and himself as the led. He'd done everything he could to wash it away and start new, better, once he's become himself again, but now - just for a while, it doesn't seem so bad.

"Come on," L says, not answering his question. "Let's go inside."

 

\---

 

Mello's arms ache in a way where they don't feel real. He could just be a head floating somewhere and he wouldn't notice. When B unchains him, the blood flowing back in is the first thing that he feels and it hurts like an attack, like there must be some outside force pressing in on him, something beyond his body simply existing.

The water flowing into his mouth - dripping down his chin, getting on his shirt - is the second thing he feels. There's a lot of that, and some grunting, which might be him or might be B, and he tries to remind himself to be afraid, to fight, but the water is so relieving and then there's a cushion under his head and a hand in his hair and he knows it's all wrong, not anything he'd come looking for, but he'd so tired and so drained and so absent of any other option, that falling asleep strikes him as his only possible recourse.

He wakes hazily in what could have been several hours or several minutes, squinting at the light streaming in through the window and knocking over the glass of water that had been set next to him. "Shit," he mumbles, but it barely comes out at more than a twisty ache in his throat, and he picks the glass up, chugging down all the water he can salvage, then looking around for more.

The place is clean. Not just wiped of any blood or internal organs, but _clean_. It looks like a maid-service has been through. The books have all been stacked into neat, uniform piles, the dust wiped from every surface, the used mugs cleared from the tables.

Mello blinks, tries to stand, then tries again. The sun has warmed the cheap linoleum and he feels it gently through his socks. And that's - he'd been wearing shoes, hadn't he? He glances behind him and sees his boots lined neatly next to each other at the foot of where he'd been sleeping. He'd been given a pillow and blanket, too. He looks down at his wrists. There are marks chafed into the skin there and he remembers the cold press of the cuffs well enough to know he hadn't imagined it. His joints still ache and his head's a bit foggy and, really, there are a lot of questions to be asked, but the most pertinent one at this point is this: where is Beyond?

Then he smells the burning.

His feet trip over themselves, socks slipping on the newly smooth floor, and he's not sure if he's even going in the direction of the door, but then -

Two plates. The table is set. Orange juice and coffee and bacon sizzling on the stove. The toaster dings and it rings through Mello's bones like a shock and B pulls two pieces of bread out with long fingers, wincing and biting his lip as he burns himself slightly. "Morning, sleepyhead," he says. It's quaint and otherworldly, like Mello's just stepped out of reality, but then B smiles and it stretches his face in ugly, knowing shapes, and it becomes clear that he understands - and has purposefully manufactured - the strangeness of the situation. "Hungry?"

"You. You're making breakfast." Mello stands there, hair mussed from sleep and falling in his eyes. He means to sound shocked but his voice is hoarse and flat, not registering any particular feeling.

"Yes." B scoops some eggs onto each plate, holding one out to Mello.

Mello twitches toward it - starving, he realizes quite suddenly; when was the last time he ate? - but stops. "You killed two people," he says, as if he can't quite decide whether that had really happened. What time is it? What day is it?

"Three, actually," B says, shrugging and setting both of the plates on the table. "You can shower first if you want - I cleaned the bathroom, so no need to worry about papa bear's cooties - but your food will get cold, and you'll need your strength." He blows on his eggs, kicking his feet like a little boy, even though his legs are so long he has to bend them strangely to fit them under the table. He looks like an L who's been cut off the page and pasted back on, fitting into the world with jagged, unsuitable edges. Even in the airy morning light, the shadows move strangely around him.

Mello's still standing. He really is fucking hungry - but. There are still marks on his wrists. A dark brown stain on his chest where the heart had been for hours. He doesn't know where the bodies are and he's not sure he wants to. The whole room is so bright and clean. It's surreal, but in a very sharp, vivid way. He wonders if there's something he could kill B with in here. He wonders if he should have breakfast first.

He waits for Beyond to do something that gives him permission to make the decision to attack, but he just sits there, cutting his bacon into neat pieces. Who does that? He's a cannibal. Isn't he a cannibal? He's probably a cannibal. He's the type.

Mello takes a few steps toward the table, one foot in front of the other, slow, slow, so that he can run for it any time. He picks up the glass of orange juice after a few moments. "Does this have pulp in it?"

"Of course not," B says, wrinkling his nose and shoveling another forkful of eggs into his mouth.

"I like pulp," Mello says.

"And I like pulling people's eyeballs from their sockets and keeping them in jars. Sit down, Mihael."

Mello sits down. B pours him some coffee. Everything smells so good. The eggs are cooked to perfection, soft but not runny, and Mello feels instantly better just putting food in his mouth. He eats so quickly that he may vomit after, drinking his pulp-free orange juice between mouthfuls without complaint, and even taking his coffee without milk.

"I've never actually done that," B says, watching him eat. He's got a weird air about him, like a predator who doesn't see Mello as prey. Maybe he does, but Mello's too hungry to care. "The jar thing. I usually just throw people's body parts away when I'm done with them. Can't you tell you're special?"

"Where are the bodies?" Mello says, around his bacon. It's a weird sentence and he feels separate from it, like he'd only said it because it's what needs to be said, not something he actually thought up himself.

"Bedroom." B licks his fingers. He's vaguely terrifying, but in a subdued, teasing sort of way. Mello's skin crawls, but like an afterthought. The fear is only a minor setback in the conversation. "They're tucked in all cozy. Cleaned of prints. Don't worry your pretty little head about a thing."

Mello wipes at his mouth. Bert is dead. Watson is dead. Watson had tried to rape him and Watson is dead now. Beyond had saved him. Sort of. That had happened. He'd known them, had met with them almost everyday, and now they're dead and their hearts are not in their bodies and - the man across the table from him did that. The man with the bony wrists and too-sharp teeth and partly drawn-on eyebrows. The more he looks at it, the more he realizes that B's face is made up of weird ticks, plastered together in loose, gleaming expressions. It's hard to remember that this is the man from the stories. A Wammy's legend. A childhood horror tale is pouring him more coffee.

"Do you love your daddy, Mihael?" Beyond asks him.

"I - " What? Is that a trick question? Is that even a real question? "… I don't really remember him."

"No, not him. The other one." B smiles and it rips across his face like a gash. "Daddy Warbucks. The man who's image you were made in. And no, not god either."

"You mean L," Mello says, swallowing. He doesn't know how he feels about that. Roger had always said to think of L as a surrogate older brother, and Watari had called him 'a role model,' but L himself had seemed to prefer not to be called anything, except maybe for dinner.

B smiles wider. "Yes, I mean L."

Mello's starting to realizes that Beyond usually means L. "Do I need to?" he asks.

B's face twists around the words, as if repeating them back to himself, and then nods. "Finish your coffee, babydoll. We've got a long trip ahead of us."

 

\---

 

When Wedy gets the first message, she ignores it. When she gets the second, she reads it with her eyes rolling. The third is not even encrypted or password protected, it's just Aiber whining in her voicemail. By the time the business proposals turn into drunk texts, she decides she has nothing much else to do. Costa Rica is too warm, anyway, and Watari offers to pay for her flight to England.

And, well, Winchester's weather is just her type, really.

 

\---

tbc.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so there you have, chapter 15, the last thing i wrote before my brief hiatus, so the writing in the next chapter may differ quite a bit, since i wrote a 20k story for a different fandom in between finishing chapter 15 and starting chapter 16. then again, it may be utterly identical. who knows? i certainly don't. i just hope it will be halfway decent and that all of you reading will enjoy it and that's all i can really ask for. thanks for being patient with me and sticking with this story, despite my issues, and thank you - and i grow about ten levels more cheesy and lame in saying - for believing in me. it's a cliche but it's applicable and, as i've been saying from the beginning, this story is made of cliches.
> 
> that aside, i was thinking that - in order to move the plot along properly - i may end up having a chapter that is all or mostly made up of mello + B scenes. would that be unduly annoying for anyone? i may not even have to but balancing the timeline is a bitch and so who knows how things will end up. it's an lxlight fic at heart but it's spawned off in different directions as well and i really hope that isn't a deal-breaker for anyone.
> 
> thank you again for reading and bookmarking and commenting. <3


	16. half measures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: minor violence, general timeline incompetence, beyond birthday - you know, the usual.
> 
> notes: hello and welcome to the wow-you're-finally-updating show! i'm jaye, your host! no, but really i never wanted this to be one of those fics that would take months to update - mostly because those fics never really hold my interest well and there's a lot of re-reading involved - but alas, here we are. by my calendar (yes i have a calendar for this, don't think i don't) it's been about seven weeks, which is upsetting to me on a couple of levels. all i can say is that this is NOT an indication of a pattern. i don't expect any future updates to take longer than a month to be posted, at most. i just had quite a few things going on last month, including but not limited to: otakon! (which was hella fun), beach vacation with my family and, most importantly and writing-schedule affectingly, my long-distance girlfriend came to stay with me for a little while. so, i had my hands full, and my writing time got just about cut in half.
> 
> now, though, a few minor trips and occasions aside, my schedule is relatively free until january and my goal is to update at least five or six times before the end of 2013. so fasten your seatbelts, folks, this is going to be a ride of slightly increased speed. cowabunga~
> 
> special thanks to tai black, once again, for messaging me about updating. and thank you to everyone who reviewed last time, especially those I didn't get a chance to reply to. thanks, in general, to all of you for reading.
> 
> ~
> 
> since it's been so long, i thought i'd do a bit of a ~previously on nights~ so that the very likely possibility that some people don't remember what the fuck even happened last chapter can be rectified. so, ahem, in chapter fifteen:
> 
> l and light checked out of their improvised love nest into a crappy hotel room outside of tokyo, where they proceeded to get very drunk and also very violent in the parking lot, and then tucked each other in and went to bed. the investigation team did some investigating and, with the somewhat unsavory help of aiber and watari, found light's secret apartment and, in it, (one of) light's secret boyfriend(s). mikami was just as shocked to see them as they were him and left promptly and the only conclusion the taskforce could draw from the encounter was that light was not in fact kira but, rather, just a big gay. in a completely different city, beyond birthday made mello breakfast, and elsewhere, wedy got a call directing her to a certain orphanage in winchester…

_"If the world go wrong, it was in some off-hand manner never meant to go right."_  
\- Charles Dickens, _Bleak House_

 

\---

 

The boy at the door doesn't quite look the picture of dirty orphan - his clothes are clean, hair washed, fed well enough - and the quasi-dangerous but mostly bored expression he makes, tapping a cigarette against his lips, just serves to make him look like any little suburban prince, desperate to escape his domain. From the way L had always talked about his childhood, Wedy had pictured a little white house with dirty windows and weeds in the yard. Children with patches of mud on their knees. The boy at the door is too clean.

He doesn't say anything to her as she walks up the solid stone steps to the large double doors, just fiddles with his lighter, trying to spark a flame and pointedly ignore her at the same time. The knockers don't have the heads of lions on them, but that's about the only attribute of an early-19th century British country home that this place lacks, and she huffs to herself to have to stand in front of it and wait for entrance. She looks back at the boy.

"Are you the welcoming committee or something?"

He raises an eyebrow, fingers fumbling again on his lighter. "No," he says, too quickly. "I don't know." He eyes the sharp slit in her dress, touching the tops of her thighs and the edges of her pantyhose. "What are you here for?" he asks, with something that might be suspicion if it had more energy behind it.

Watari had told her to ask for Roger Ruvie, that he'd be expecting her, but she wants a better feel for her situation than that, so she smiles wide, splitting a lipstick grin at the boy, and says, "L."

And that seems to be all she really needs to say.

"What, really?" he says, scrambling up out of his tucked-up crouch against the brick facade to make them more level height. He can't be more than fourteen or fifteen, freckles splitting across his nose and wide, jittering eyes. Looks like he needs a smoke more than a kid his age probably should, so she closes up her grin and pulls out her own pack.

"Can I get a light?" she asks, ignoring his question. He blinks at her and she thinks he might play the smooth little bastard card and try to light it for her, but he just hands his lighter over, face blank, fingers twitching a bit. The spark and sharp bite of nicotine is ethereal when it hits her. There's something about this place on this foggy morning that's perfect for a smoke, the cold, dim light of fall tracked in with the mud.

She notices the dirt under the boy's fingernails then, and that's something, at least.

"What are you to do with L?" he asks, pushing the issue, eyes kept from going wide. He scratches at his thin arms, lanky but seeming more solid than he actually is, if only because he's more silent than not.

"Well," Wedy says, breathing out a plume of smoke that rather catches the boy in the face, "I'm his wife, of course." She quirks her lips prettily.

He doesn't wince for the smoke, possibly doesn't even notice it. "What." There's no enunciation. He blinks at her and she flutters her eyelashes back and then the door opens and a tall man in an offensively orange sweater and large eyebrows looks down at them, eyes flicking in between.

"Wedy?" he says to her.

She turns her best smile on him. "That's me."

He nods. "Come inside." He looks at the boy as he holds the door open for her. "Haven't you got revising to do, Matt?"

"No," Matt says, slipping away his lighter and following them in, eyes still trained on Wedy like she's some sort of unfamiliar beast that's burrowed its way into his home.

The man in orange sweater flexes his tightly muscled shoulders with agitation. He looks like a worn down body builder who was dressed by his blind, aged grandmother, or else has been taking fashion advice from Aiber.

"Then you've got breakfast to eat," he grunts back to Matt.

"Not hungry." A pause, with an agitated strain from both ends, and then, "She told me she was L's wife." He points one knobby, pale finger at Wedy.

"What?" the man says, blinking quickly and looking between them, like he's trying to figure out the joke.

Wedy's smile tightens. The kid's not stupid. Doesn't look or talk or act like a genius, the way one would expect a boy at a genius school to do, but he's not a gullible little idiot, either, which is more than can be said for most children. Wedy doesn't really like kids, and this one is no exception, but she doesn't bother using her flashy smile on him anymore.

"I lied," she tells him, not looking at the man or his ugly sweater at all.

"Why?" Matt says.

Her smile isn't faked this time. "For fun."

Matt watches her down the hall and she shoots him bedroom eyes over her shoulder, the way it's so fun to do with teenagers - drowning in hormones and floundering incapability. She'd done the same with L, and although that had never quite worked out in the ways she'd wanted it to, it had given her something.

Her phone buzzes at her hip and she flicks her eyes down to read another of Aiber's anxious text messages and is about to tap out a reply saying she's just arrived, when the man leading her stops and holds out a hand.

"No phones," he says.

Wedy huffs solemnly, but cuts off the reply to switch off her phone and toss it to him. He catches it in one firm swoop with his large rugby hands and nods at her with no trace of humor, then points to the door they're stopped a few feet from. "Here."

 

\---

 

The man behind the desk twinkles his eyes at her, but tiredly. Where Watari is spry and capable, a seamless shadow with great control of his presence and appearance, this man is just old. He is an old person. He smiles like one and he stands from his chair like one, bones creaking in the crackling warmth from the fireplace and it's just like Wedy assumes a Dickens would be, if she were to ever bother to read him.

"Roger Ruvie?" she says, tilting her head the side as she peels her gloves from her fingers.

The man's back is slightly bent, curving down in crude estimation of L's measured arch - like the bastardized prototype of a newer model. He nods and holds out a withered hand.

"You're the operative Watari sent, I assume?"

"In the flesh."

She takes the offered hand, the fire-engine red of her fingernails contrasting sickly with Ruvie's spotted skin. The handshake is gentle until it's not, and then he's pulling her with startling strength forward by the palm. She jerks herself out of his grip on instinct, twisting neatly at the wrist and shoving him off.

He's smiling at her, but it's nothing like the movement suggests, rather a polite, humbled, apologetic smile. "You have strong wrists," he says. "That's good. I like that in a woman."

Wedy blinks at him, not sure if she should kick him over the desk or take the cup of tea that he's suddenly offering her, gesturing towards one of the finely upholstered chairs. It's almost a surreal situation - the boy with the cigarette, the man in the orange sweater, and now Roger Ruvie, the apparently benevolent proprietor of the establishment. She is possibly in an old horror film, or else just a P.G. Wodehouse novel that's borrowing the atmosphere of one.

She takes the tea cup, then says outright, "That's very strange." There's no dancing about these sort of things - pleasantries are for other sorts of people working in other sorts of businesses.

"You knew L?" he asks, as they sit down directly across from each other other. She nods, noting that he speaks of L in the past tense, which is notable so far as it's a contrast to Watari's phrasing. "Then you'll know that here we are in the business of the very strange."

His look then is the sort that's probably intended to be laced with mystery, and it's very charming and all, and would probably skate down the spine of somebody less professional, but she's here for one thing and one thing only. She sets down her teacup on the table, not having taken a sip.

"Look, I told Watari and I'll tell you: if you've got the cash, I'll do most things, but I'm not going into any situation where my chances of surviving are lower than my chances of profiting. So if this is going to involve Kira - "

"Actually, this has nothing to do with the Kira case," Ruvie says, continuing with the same modest efficiency. He picks up a scuffed manilla folder from the table beside him, loose papers sticking out at the edges, and hands it to her. "Read the file."

There is a knock at the door and Roger excuses himself politely, adding, "Have a scone, if you like. There's clotted cream. I won't be a moment."

He is a moment, and quite a bit more, stepping out to speak in hushed, important voices with the man in the orange sweater. So, Wedy has a scone. She continues to chew it even when she flips open the file and sees the mutilated corpse, the first thing on the first page, eyes gouged out of the head of a young girl. She licks the clotted cream off her fingers.

When Ruvie comes back in, she's sitting with her legs crossed, hands in her lap, staring at the file where she's set it on the table. She hadn't gotten through the whole thing, but she'd read enough.

"I apologize," he says. "Grady is a talented caretaker, but it's far too much work for just one person and we both know it. Believe it or not, though, it's rather difficult to find adults well-suited to work here." Grady, she assumes, is the man in the sweater, but she doesn't much care and doesn't much need to, just straightens her back, crossing her legs the other way round. "You've familiarized yourself with the case, then?"

"Beyond Birthday," she says, enunciating the strange name with a knowing sort of humor that says she knows it must be a codename, "escaped murderer. What do you want me to do about him?"

Roger's smile only grows as he retakes his seat, and Wedy's not sure, but she thinks she may be getting used to the particular sort of gleaming strangeness of this place, these people. He coughs into his handkerchief, then pushes his glasses up his crooked nose.

"Something that you'll need those strong wrists of yours for."

 

\---

 

Light sleeps with tissues stuffed in his nose and L laughs at him before dropping off to sleep, head cushioned against his chest, and laughs harder when he wakes in the morning.

"You look like shit," he says affectionately.

Light scoffs, pulling himself out of bed and cuffing L to the headboard, giving the chain a few tugs to make sure it's secure. "Whereas you look simply dashing."

L can feel the bruises on his skin and assumes they show and likes that they show. It wouldn't be quite right for Light to be marked up and for him not to be, and any resulting smugness he might feel from such a situation would be overshadowed by the keen sense of displacement. Enemies, they're enemies, of course, but only by some vague and distant dictionary definition of the word. The reality is that they're on their own side, one they've built from scratch. The bruises are their gang symbol. The blood is the battle cry.

If only they had something beside one another to go to war with.

"Injury suits me," L says, stretching back on the mattress. His body aches with it. "People have always told me so."

Light smiles and the expression attempts cruelty but settles after a moment solidly on teasing. "Your conquests, you mean?"

L arches his back slightly, trying to stretch the sore parts, and the ache is good. He likes the ache. "I wouldn't call them that," he says.

"I would." Light toes on his shoes and picks up his jacket from where it had been discarded on the chair. "I'm going to go try to find coffee that is at least somewhat ingestible."

"Ten sugars for me," L puts in.

"And then we have to go back," Light continues, barely blinking at him.

"Already?" L says, tempering the curiosity in his voice. He has a tendency to sleep for long periods of time, it's true, but his biorhythmic clock isn't so off for him to have so wildly misjudged the time. He's fairly certain it's only been a day. "I know we're out of town, but Tokyo's not that far away and unless work hours have changed since I dropped out of operation…"

"Not for work," Light says, mechanically pulling on his jacket and lining up the sleeves with a rigid sort of propriety. "Don't feel too smug about it, but I haven't really figured out where to store you yet."

"Back in the city?"

Light nods. L frowns. Light had explained his plan last night, though L doubts what he'd heard had encompassed the full extent, and he thinks this is one of those details that should have been sorted out earlier. But then, Light had been running on very little time and he'd pulled the whole Mikami thing together quite spectacularly - that is, of course, assuming it's all gone off without a hitch, which their current uninterrupted existence suggests it has - and likely couldn't be bothered to consider this particular issue until things had calmed down.

That's somewhat sloppy, isn't it? That's the sort of thing L would do, not Light. Perhaps - god forbid - they're becoming more alike. Perhaps one of these days they'll just melt together into some large, amorphously sludgy substance, and live happily ever after like that. Sometimes L's almost sure that's already happened.

He smiles, thinks it might be edging smug despite Light's recommendation, and says, "I may know a place."

 

\---

 

B goes to take a piss and Mello runs like hell. He doesn't even have his shoes on and his mouth still tastes like orange juice and out on the landing it's freezing cold, but he keeps going, keeps going anyway, doesn't think he could stop if he tried and -

Beyond is on the sidewalk waiting for him. Mello had half expected as much and even as he crashes into him, body moving with ragged inertia, he's more curious as to whether B had come out here directly or climbed out the window in the middle of his toilet break than he is particularly shocked.

He grunts with frustration as B's long fingers dig into his shoulders, crushing bone to skin with solid force. It's still early morning and the streets are uncrowded, especially in this nowhere part of town, and the few people about barely glance their way. Mello could start screaming _'Pervert!'_ at the top of his lungs, but - even the questionable effectiveness of such aside - something like fluttering self-consciousness stops him. He could be murdered here on the sidewalk and he is too embarrassed to call for help.

But then B lets go.

"I won't stop you," he says, with curious sobriety. His long arms drop to his sides, hanging there as if discarded. Mello blinks at him, uncomprehending. "I mean it," B tells him. "You can have your run of the city. You're not kidnapped, you're not my prisoner. You're completely free to go where you will."

Mello doesn't believe it, _can't_ believe it, but as likely as this is to be some sort of trap or sick little joke, he still feels wild hope rising in this stomach. Something about the innate goodness of humanity, something about common sense, about being _reasonable_ \- about how of course B will let him go. Why wouldn't he? Why would anyone hold a fifteen year old boy against his will?

But then, why would anyone hold a fifteen year old boy to the floor and try to rape him? Why would anyone cut the hearts out of the chests of men he does not know? Mello really couldn't say.

He considers turning tail and just heading in the opposite direction, not listening to anything else B has to say, just getting as far away as possible. But he doesn't move.

Beyond smiles. "The thing is, you haven't really got anywhere to go, have you? They'll be looking for you. There are three bodies upstairs, and yours isn't one of them. They'll be looking. You've got no money, no way out of the city - "

"I've got money," Mello snaps, voice hushed. It's an impotent protest, but he can't quite help himself.

"No you don't," Beyond says, lips twitching with jagged satisfaction, "because I stole your measly little stash from that shithole apartment of yours." His voice squeaks in places and seems to be made of arches and undulations between masculinity and femininity, like he's wavering his way through puberty or else just switching back forth at will. "Under the mattress, Mihael? How trite. You can't go back there, anyway. That's the first place they'll look for you."

Mello doesn't know if B means the cops or the gangs, but he's not sure it matters. He's fucked, either way. He can't be killed and he can't be knocked off his course - nevermind that B is perfectly as likely to do both of those things at any given moment. He hasn't yet, though. If anything, he's done Mello a few favors. He saved him and, on top of that, made him breakfast. He brews good coffee.

He still smells like spearmint.

"All my shit's back there," he says after a moment, but he can feel the resignation already settling in. He is not going to run. He is not even wearing shoes.

"I'll buy you new shit," B says, stepping closer. "New pretty leather pants for your pretty little legs." He pops his eyebrows comically, then lifts a hand to prop up Mello's chin, studying him with sly amusement. "A hairbrush. A plane ticket. We're gonna find him, Mihael. He's out there and we're going to find him."

Mello wants to jerk out of his grip, but he doesn't. He feels something splitting in his chest, circling around down there with the exhaustion and tears and the heart that had soaked blood through his shirt. He thinks it might be relief. He's been alone for weeks, scrambling wildly but not getting anywhere, and Beyond Birthday is a psychopath, but he's also technically a genius. The reality is, for all his maddening effort, Mello probably cannot do this alone.

"And then what?" he asks quietly, breath whispering solidly in the cold morning air.

Beyond's grin splits wider. "And then we bring him home."

Mello's shoulders slump, ankles weakening, and he has to brace himself to stand, has to brace himself not to sink to the floor right here and now, but - but. He is not alone anymore. B's spindly fingers hold him up.

 

\---

 

Light frowns, pressing down harder on the gas pedal. "I'm not holding you captive in a building _that you own_. I know you have a tendency to underestimate my intelligence, but this is a bit much even taking that into consideration."

L's curled up in the passenger's seat and ravaging the cheap mochi they'd picked up with animalistic intent. "Oh, come on," he replies around a mouthful. "If you thought about it for a moment you would see that it's brilliant."

"Chew your food," Light tells him.

"Yes, mother," L says, swallowing quickly and taking an overenthusiastic gulp of coffee. "Really, though, the best place to hide a tree and all that. No one would think to look for me at one of my own properties. The investigators don't know about it, so even if they suspect I've just skipped out on them like you said, it wouldn't occur to them to look there. And Watari most certainly knows that I've either been kidnapped or killed, so he's not going to check out my personal hide-outs. And even if he thought to take a chance on it, he would have done so already, and since I obviously wasn't there, there would be no reason for him to go back."

Light frowns. It's very possible that L has a point, but then - despite all of their recent proclamations of honesty - it's extremely unlikely that he hasn't got some ulterior motive. Light's figured quite concretely that L does not want to be rescued, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to escape. Being saved by some outside force, or even relinquished out of the goodness of Light's own heart, would evidently be too much of an embarrassment for his pride to withstand. There is no doubt in his mind, however, that L would still like to come out the winner of whatever game they're playing now. Perhaps that requires rescuing himself and turning Light in. Perhaps L just means to drive him crazy very, very slowly, until he snaps and just offs them both. But that would be more of a draw than anything else, wouldn't it?

Either way, the current circumstances outweigh those of the future, and he really does need somewhere to keep L, for at least the time being. The old apartment is known to the investigation team now and, even if everything with Mikami has gone exactly as planned, they may remain suspicious enough to check back in the future. He's had Misa hold onto the lease, of course, though more for appearance's sake than anything else.

He turns onto the main road. They're not too far from the city now and he needs to make a decision quickly. If Watari knows about it, it's risky, but - but then there are more factors than that, aren't there?

'"What about Aiber?" he asks, barely considering the question.

L stiffens noticeably in the seat next to him, the air around him drying up palpably. "Aiber's dead," he says softly, with something like concession in his voice. Like he thinks Light is just forcing him to say it over again for his own sick amusement.

Light rolls his eyes. "No, he's not. I saw him yesterday. Care to explain how you managed that, by the way? I really am rather impressed. Your acting's gotten better."

L rather freezes, mochi lifted halfway to his mouth, and turns to face Light more directly. "What are you talking about," he says dully, voice so utterly controlled that he must be making a pointed effort to keep it so. Light listens for the break in the tension, the sudden smile, the gotcha! noise, but it doesn't come.

He blinks over at L. "You really didn't know," he says, blankly. Well then, that changes a few things, doesn't it? "So, if it wasn't you're doing, then how'd he manage it?"

"I'm sorry, I'm going to need you to repeat what you said just now. Slower and with more enunciation." L's voice is hard, but wavering. "Aiber - "

"Is alive, yes. Upright and walking around Tokyo and making an ass of himself. Don't ask me how it happened, because I don't know. I assumed you'd manipulated the information in your database before you were taken, but if you're telling me that's not the case, then I really have no earthly idea how he managed it. Maybe I was right all along and he isn't a human but rather a very belligerent lawn chair."

He can feel himself getting aggravated as he speaks, fueled by that familiar spark, the one he'd thought he'd stamped out. Honestly, it might be practical to worry about this more, but Light really can't factor that in at the moment. Aiber and Wedy had ben secondary concerns to begin with, dealt with more for pleasure than anything else. Aiber's survival is inconvenient, but hardly a full kink in the plans. More a small smudge than anything else. He'll deal with it. He'll deal with everything.

L blinks and Light watches him swallow out of the corner of his eye, looking strained and undernourished in the white glare of morning. He absorbs the information in a matter of seconds, jaw clenching for a second, like he can't quite make himself believe it, but he doesn't express his doubt. "And Wedy?" he asks.

"I don't know," Light says, eyes flicking to the road in front of him. "I haven't seen her, but then I assume if she had died Aiber would be after me about it, and he wasn't. Do they keep in contact, do you think? If I didn't know much better I'd say they were dating or something, but, of course, that's not the case, is it?"

L ignores most of what he says. There's a small, unenjoyable smile twitching onto his face. "Aiber's alive," he says, grin growing. He chuckles shortly, then huffs up, eyes flicking out the window.

"Yes, yes, don't break out the party hats just yet. I'll fix things soon enough," Light says. L seems unbothered by the threat and it feels vaguely impotent even to Light himself. He sounds tired, more than anything. He needs better coffee. He needs a better person in his passenger's seat. "He looked wretched, anyway," he throws in.

L is still smiling. "I feel better," he says, taking another large bite of mochi. "I like you better now."

Light rolls his eyes. "It's nothing to do with me," he says. "I'd be happy to see the bastard drop dead in front of me."

"Yes, I know," L says, a sudden distant giddiness is his voice. "I like you anyway. Isn't that strange?"

Light shifts lanes, the slow waves of his mind melding with the hum of the engine. "No," he says. "Not so strange."

 

\---

 

The bedroom is starting to smell. Mello wants to go inside, but he doesn't. No, scratch that, there's nothing he'd like less than to go in there, but he wants to be the kind of person who wants to. Who will stare death in the face and say something clever in response. He wants to be L, essentially. Always has. He's not actually sure if L does any of the great, grand things that Mello attributes to him, but the thoughts are comforting nonetheless. Of course, such comfort is dependent on the assurance that L is alive.

Which he has, technically, though the source is not exactly the most… reliable.

Beyond is sitting cross-legged on the freshly-swept floor, jarring human hearts and drawing tally marks on his arms with permanent marker.

Mello is standing, awkwardly and unsure of what to do with his hands, in the doorway. After a few moments he nods at the hearts and says, "What are you going to do with them?"

B hums theatrically and gives a pronounced shrug. "I thought I might mail them to the police."

Mello nods and takes as he's decided to take everything B does and says: with as little personal involvement as possible. He's here for L, he's going to find L, and he's using the tools available to help him do this. That's all this is. So he keeps his voice level when he asks, "Why?"

B takes a long, heavy breath in. "Because," he says, with a roll of his eyes that might be derogatory and might just be a spastic twitch, "I like stamps."

Mello huffs, slumping against the wall. He's dressed, shoes on, completely caffeinated. Beyond had offered him a shower, but he'd declined. He hasn't washed in days and there's still dried blood on his shirt, but it blends with the black, and he doesn't - he's not going to take his clothes off with B on the other side of the door. He's not going to just stand there in Watson's washroom with all of his soap and his dental floss and his meaningless odds and ends. He could have ended up a stain on the white tile - if B hadn't -

He could still end up that way yet.

"We should go," Mello tells him, trying for stony but melting somewhere along the way into unsure territory. "Someone's going to come looking around here at some point." He doesn't want to be caught and he doesn't want more blood, either.

"Not so soon," B says, licking his fingers to peel apart a layer of packaging. "I made a call."

Mello jerks still. "What call? To who?"

"Don't know," he says. "I went through Mr. Bert Mathias's phone and dialed the last missed call. Told the guy who picked up that I'd be busy for a few days and not to worry. He was a doll about it. Easy peasy."

Mello shifts, scrubbing at his elbows. His skin is itchy. "How," he starts, because even when his voice drops from the airy, effeminate pitch, Beyond sounds nothing like Bert.

"I'm quite a good mimic, believe it or not."

Mello blinks. Right, right. Of course. He could almost be L, in some quiet angles. And then from others, he's more foreign than anything Mello's ever seen and the air around him seems to bend in awkward shadows, like he doesn't fit properly into reality. That's probably just Mello's mental embellishment, but then L had told him that Beyond was, in a word, _strange_. Not a typical sort of strange, either. There is a separateness to him that L had described but that Mello had not really conceptualized until he'd been confronted with it himself. Now it seeps into the air, choking the room with a sense of the unreal.

"We should go, anyway," Mello mumbles, looking at the dirt caked on the toe of his boot. "That's why you found me, right? You want me to help you find L. So let's go to Japan, let's go find him." He says it with an unsettled sort of distance, like he doesn't want to insist to forcefully on anything with B. He's not afraid - well, no, he rather is - but it's more a fear of the unknown. He's not sure what to expect at any given moment.

Insanity, perhaps, but even that's not a sure bet.

B finishes his packaging and sits up, dusting off his hands daintily - which does nothing to scrub away the blood - and looks at Mello with a quaint arch of his brow.

"First thing's first, goldilocks: I'm not here for you to help me. I'm here to help _you_. Second thing's second: we've got preparations to make before lift off. It won't take more than a few days, but you're going to need all sort of bits and bobs if you want to fly with the big kiddies."

He passes Mello to get to the sink, knocking on the faucet with his wrist and then washing his hands with systematic determination. Half the time he seems to revel in mess and chaos, but the other half he is obsessively cleanly. It's some form of OCD, maybe, but not a particularly consistent one.

_How can you possibly help me?_ Mello would like to be able to say, but even he's not that graceless. Especially after B has already - he's done enough. Proved his usefulness, certainly.

So instead, Mello asks, "Why? What's in it for you?"

B shrugs, shaking off the water. "A brand new pal," he says, voice rising. It should sound more mocking than it truly does.

Mello rolls his eyes, arms crossed, and, after a moment, asks the question that's been churning in the back of his mind for hours now. "How'd you even find me?"

"Didn't have to," B says. "I was dropping by Wammy's for a little bit of reminiscence - and to hack some files - and I saw a pretty little doll of a boy marching his way down Winchester's country roads, all packed and ready for adventure. I remembered you from your photo. Before my arrest, old Pa and I used to keep correspondence. He always liked me. Maybe not as well as his prized invention, but still."

"Watari?" Mello asks, frowning.

B nods. "Dear old Q. As it turns out, I wasn't such a poor copy after all. Not compared to the rest of you." He smiles and his teeth seem jagged in the light, though not half as otherworldly as they had looked in the dark.

"So, it was just coincidence that you ended up following me all that time?" Mello asks, not quite managing to believe it.

B grins, sprawling back against the off-white counters in uneven juts of limb. "I prefer to think of it as destiny." He rests his chin on a loose palm. "You are a means to an end. You've never been anything but. It's just a different end you're headed for now, isn't it? You should feel lucky. Not everyone's allowed into the garden. Not me, certainly, but we're going to break down the walls and flood the fields and I think, at the bottom, at the very bottom, we're going to find him. I don't think I could survive if I thought anything else."

He blinks his eyes slowly, facial muscles skittering in strange patterns, and then his face flattens into a slim grin. "Come now, lovely, we've got places to be," he says, as he hoists his packages up and marches for the door.

Mello wants to tell him _not to call him that_ , but Mello wants to do a lot of things these days. And doesn't. Instead he follows.

 

\---

 

It's a large building and it reeks of vague dilapidation, just the way L remembers it. It sits on the edges of Ikebukuro, but unlike the surrounding buildings which are often broken into and trashed, the sign above the door and the smooth sheen of chrome and glass makes it appear more well-protected than it, in fact, is. L had used it once for an elaborate set-up and take-down and had kept the lease since simply out of a keen mix of curiosity and laziness. Who can say when something will become necessary? Better to hold onto the resources available to you than not.

He's not sure yet if he wants to use this to his advantage - at the time when he'd suggested it, his inclination was mostly to find a room and some time to himself. Thinking it over, however, it is probably remiss of him not to have great plots and machinations in store.

"No way," Light says at the first glance. "No imaginable way am I dropping by here for you every week. As if the sleazy apartment wasn't bad enough, this I can't explain away by implicating illicit homosexual trysts."

L shrugs, somewhat amused by the fact that Light has evidently convinced himself that he doesn't visit L at least every other day, and says, "Then don't get caught."

He doesn't have a key on him, but his lock-pick skills are as sharp as ever and he's got all the security codes memorized better than he has birthdays, and they get inside relatively easily. The building is dusty, though he has a cleaner come twice a year - January and July respectively; L does't expect to be here long enough to meet him personally - so it's not as bad as all that. Light wrinkles his nose anyway, as if they're a newly-wed couple shopping for a house and his real estate agent has just led him to an utter disappointment.

"There's not even any furniture," he says, voice wrought with utter deplorability, as he stares down the long, empty halls, into equally empty rooms. It was an office, maybe, at some point. It's not now.

"So buy a mattress," L says, slumping idly against the wall. "What other furniture do you think I require? Though, mind, I wouldn't say no to a good desk chair. A spinning one, with smooth wheels. None of that cheap, impractical stuff." He puts a finger to his lip, tilting his head frivolously. "And maybe a refrigerator, if I'm to spend the rest of my life here."

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3.

Light frowns. "Who says you'll be here for that long?"

L smiles thinly back at him. "Who says I'll be alive for that long?"

The momentary look of stanch unease that flashes across Light's face, before he quickly wipes the slate clean, is, more than anything, just rather satisfying.

 

\---

 

Light chains L to a solid bit of infrastructure before leaving and, once in the parking lot, checks his phone for the first time since the previous night. One call from Misa, one from Matsuda, and two from Mikami. God, today's going to be big fun.

He drops back at home - or what technically qualifies as his home - to shower and dress, and finds it empty of the shrill excitability of Misa's presence. There's a sticky note on the counter that says she's gone out to film early and that she hopes he enjoyed his trip. The i's are dotted with hearts and there's an achey resentment sketched in every word. She has sloppy penmanship.

In front of the bathroom mirror he conceals the bruises on his face to the best of his ability, but if anyone asks he'll just say that Misa had thrown the minibar at him or something to that effect.

He leaves Mikami an exhausted but apologetic voicemail, sounding as haggard and blameless as he can manage, asking if they can meet later. He gives him the address of the investigation headquarters and tries to feel self-satisfied about it, but is honestly more tired than he'd readily like to admit.

L is tiring. L is magnetism on overdrive, a hellish little creature who is eating Light alive. Light smiles to himself to think of it.

He takes the train into work, like any regular salaryman, briefcase slung over his shoulder and a more potent cup of coffee clutched in one hand. When he arrives at headquarters, there is no one waiting for him on the steps and he's not sure if he should take that as a good sign or not. When Ide dawdles in the front hallway so that they won't have to take the same elevator, he settles rather more firmly on _not_. But then, that was the whole point of this plan, wasn't it? Sacrifice his spotless reputation in order to protect something more valuable.

When he arrives in the main office, a stilted silence fills everything up in waves of uneasiness. Matsuda's wringing his hands and Mogi's looking at his shoes and Aizawa's sitting straight-backed, watching stolidly over the top of his computer screen.

"Welcome back," he says, but it's with more awkwardness than accusation, and Light can feel everything playing out very nicely from here.

He swallows and makes himself as earnestly self-deprecating as possible. "Mikami called me," he says, softly, but with enough enunciation to be heard through-out the room. He sighs deeply. "I suppose you know, then."

There's a fragile uneasiness that only grows by the moment, and his words do nothing to break it. Aizawa nods. Matsuda's fingers slow to a shuffling twitch.

"It's not a big deal," Ide says, from the doorway behind him. "Right?" He looks around at the rest of them with his usual irritable vagueness.

Matsuda nods furiously. "R - right! All that matters is the Kira case and that really has - nothing to do with your, uh, personal… "

"Inclinations," Ide finishes neatly, expression tight but trying not to be.

Light's eyebrows rise. They're all so uncomfortable it's a little endearing. At the very least, he appreciates the fact that none of them seemed to have decided that he's going to jump them at any moment. Maybe they think he's too polite, or perhaps they've just realized that there isn't a single possible way in which any of them could ever be good enough for him. Mikami isn't even good enough, and he sure is good. L, Light's sure, is the farthest thing from worthy, but then that's stopped nothing from happening how it has, so perhaps he'll find himself groping Mogi in a broom-cupboard one of these days. With the way things have been going lately, it wouldn't be the most unexplainable twist.

He almost wants to smile because it's a bit funny - he is the office gay now, isn't he? He should have a call-boy pick him up just for the reactions, but then he needs all the money he can manage in order to support the whole kidnapping thing. It wouldn't do for him to take the mattress from the old apartment and drop it off in the new building, would it? He'd gotten used to it and it was pleasantly springy, but not only would that draw more attention than he particularly needs, it would be a bit suspicious for him the have a love nest set up for himself and Mikami without a proper bed.

He doesn't mind making L sleep on the floor anyway, and he'll suffer through the tragic difficulties of fucking him against the wall. He really is quite the martyr.

"I really don't want anything to interfere with the case. If you think it would be better if I didn't maintain… that sort of relationship - a secretive one, I mean - while the case is going on, I understand." He lightly shoves his bangs out of his eyes, turning away. "I knew when I started it that it was a bad idea, but I - " He stops, throat roughening, voice nearly breaking. Pitch perfect. "After L, once he was gone, I felt very… alone. I know it was wrong of me to do something like this to Misa, but I was just so lost and I - " He stops again, shaking his head. Holding it in. The poor, poor boy.

Matsuda's frowning. "How old is this Mikami guy, anyway? Where did you meet him and what's he doing with a college first year, anyway?"

"Matsuda," Aizawa says, cutting him off with a heaviness in his tone. Light's glad not to have to go into it, even if he's got answers - and very sympathy-inducing ones - for all of those questions.

"I'm just saying," Matsuda says, shrugging down into himself. "It's not like I don't trust Light's judgement, it's just - after L, well, it would be understandable if he… " He trails off. A random sleazy prosecutor is one thing, but entertaining the notion - even confronted with it as they have evidently been, and by Aiber no less - that their illustrious leader was in the habit of going around deflowering little boys? Well, it's just a bit too much for them to handle, isn't it?

Light nods to Matsuda with understanding, even though he's growing utterly bored underneath. Things are going so utterly according to plan, and although there's still much to play out, he wouldn't be unduly upset by a curveball coming his way and throwing things out of sync. There'd just be more to play with, then.

"Whatever it was," Mogi says, speaking up with unbecoming suddenness, "nothing's changed. We still have work to do." There's a certain quality to his voice, even aside from the rarity of its appearance, that commands attention.

The rest of the investigators express their agreement in one form or another and Light supposes that's as much of acceptance as he's going to be given, and that's utterly fine. It suits, even. He'd rather not have Matsuda pestering him on the mechanics of gay sex and Ide slipping him condoms on the sly. There's just one more thing. 

"My father," he says, before they can quite move onto the case, "has anyone brought this up with him? It's alright if you have, I just want to know what to be prepared for."

Aizawa looks around sternly at the group, as if for confirmation, then shakes his head. "We haven't said a thing. We figured we'd leave that up to you."

Ah, well, that makes things easier. Light nods, turning on his heel to step back to his desk, and is confronted immediately with a shiny blonde head and the sharp smell of whiskey.

"Oh, yes," Aiber says, wiggling his fingers in a quaint little mocking wave, "none of them said anything to Daddy, so I figured I'd take the liberty." Light freezes. He can almost feel the confused tension rocket sharply in the room and has to physically restrain himself from picking up the nearest heavy object and bashing Aiber over the head with it. "I went to see him yesterday. Your mom even made me tea. She's a real sweet lady, you know? You should visit home more often."

Aiber gives him a shit-eating grin and shrugs up out of his lean against the wall, taking a sip of something light brown and punchy smelling. And here, Light thinks, is the curveball. He only wishes it had dressed better.

 

\---

 

Her parents think they're being very subtle over in the kitchen, whispering to each other in halved, stumbling tones, and even though Sayu can only make out every other word, it doesn't take long for her to suss out the general meaning. Especially since it's, quite honestly, something everyone probably should have seen coming from miles away.

She taps her pencil loosely, resting her cheek against her hand against the table, and forgoing her homework to speak up and say, as loudly and intrusively as she possibly can, "So what if Light's gay?"

Her father freezes first, hands shaking a bit on the briefcase that he's inextricably attached to at every odd moment when he's at home - which is more often these day, but still not often enough. Her mother pauses for a moment, frowning slightly, but then continues with making Sayu's bento as if nothing out of the ordinary had been said. If she had to hazard a guess, Sayu would say that her mom's more upset that she hadn't done her homework last night and is further neglecting it now in favor of listening in on their conversation, than she is particularly bothered by what she's said.

"Sayu," her father starts, tone firm as ever.

"It makes a lot of sense, actually," Sayu continues, cheery and unimpeded. If she quieted down every time she was told to, she'd never get a word in. "No wonder he's not that into Misa. No straight guy could resist a girl like that."

She flashes the most endearing smile she can manage and then fills in one of her equations - probably inaccurately - to appease her mother.

Her dad looks like he's about to start in on another well-meaning and wildly conservative lecture, but her mom continues the conversation - in a louder tone, now that the cat's out of the bag and running around the yard - that they'd evidently been having before

"Honestly Soichiro," she says, "if he is? What do you want me to do about it?"

Her father's stumbling exasperation is partly sad and partly just annoying, but Sayu is used to it and her mother is used to it and if Light were here - if Light ever stopped by - he would be used to it to. No one's family is perfect and although they certainly do alright, the dissatisfied mundanity of their lovely little house in their lovely little neighborhood eats at her in odd moments like this. The smiles and the warm family dinners fade out and it's not enough, not what she wants at all.

But then everything shifts sharply back to the present and she's sitting at the breakfast table chewing on the end of her pencil and it's really not as bad as all that. She misses her brother, though. She thinks she's missed her brother for her entire life.

Her father huffs slightly, obviously uncomfortable, but not wanting to show it. "I'm not saying something needs to be done about it," he says, voice still hushed. "Just - I'm worried that it wasn't a choice he made on his own. There was a man, an older man, one of the investigators, and I think - "

"Light did it with an older man?" Sayu squeals from the table, partly just to let him know she can still hear. "Awesome!" And partly because it is, in fact, awesome.

"Sayu, do your homework," her mother says, though with little force behind it, hands still busy with the rice. She turns back to her husband. "It wasn't Touta, was it?"

"What?" her dad says, a little too loudly. "Matsuda's not gay." A pause. "I don't think he is, anyway."

Sayu laughs loudly, dropping her pencil and slumping back in her chair. "Matsuda's got a crush on _me_ ," she says, and mightily appreciates the looks it draws. "He does! Watch how he looks at me next time he comes over here, it's hilarious."

Both of her parents blink rather disbelievingly and it figures that they'd find it more likely that someone was in gay love with Light then even vaguely into her. She's not bitter - not very, anyway - but she was born in her brother's shadow and has waded around in it all her life and she is mostly okay with that, doesn't think she could ever manage to be anywhere else, but it's still nice to be looked at every so often. Really looked at, like a person on her own merit and not just as a vague extension of her older brother.

"Maybe I should ask him out?" she continues. "What, I'm just trying to keep up with my big brother. You're always saying I should be more like Light." She smiles, eyebrows jolting up as she stands from her chair, shoving her unfinished homework in her backpack. If she hurries she can finish it on the train. "Oh, I gotta go!"

"Sayu, your bento!" her mother calls after her.

"I'm gonna be late," she calls over her shoulder, pulling on her coat. "I'll buy something. Love you, Mom! Love you, Dad!"

She's out the door, the cool air sharpening everything around her - and she loves her family, she really does, but out here it's much easier to breathe. Out here is a place where she can be a person. She texts Suoh and they make plans to meet after school and get drunk in the park. She doesn't like him as much as he likes her, but then he likes her a lot and she doesn't mind looking at the way his bangs fall across his eyes or the lean lines of his track team calves. She likes the way he speaks to her. She is just another girl to him, but that's a lot more fun than being Sayu Yagami, second child of the Yagami family.

She'd rather pass out hammered on an empty stomach than take her lunch and sit quietly and follow all the rules. She's pretty sure Light's never broken a rule in his life. She's almost proud of him for the gay thing. She's proud of him, anyway. She loves him, she loves her brother.

There's just nothing that terrifies her more than ending up like him.

 

\---

 

As it turns out, it doesn't make much of a difference whether his father knows already or not - and Light honestly doesn't mind that much, it's just the idea of Aiber sleazing around his childhood home that gives him a rash if he thinks too hard about it. But, the way everything lines itself up, his dad would find out today regardless.

When Light goes outside with Aizawa on his smoke break - in memory of Ukita, he says, even though he huffs the thing down like a lifeline - Mikami is waiting on the steps. He's got a briefcase and a scarf and a harried, cornered animal look flickering through his eyes, and he freezes when he spots them. Next to him, Light can feel Aizawa tensing up noticeably. He can see his father approaching from across the street.

This is the moment. If Misa's not in position, he may actually kill her.

"Teru," he says, even though he's certain he's never actually used Mikami's first name before - not even in bed.

"Yagami-kun." Mikami is utterly stiff, legs locked up and brow tensed. Light hopes Aizawa will take the honorific as an attempt at professionalism. "You said we'd have occasion to speak privately?" he asks, pushing up his glasses.

Light takes a few nervous - cautious, but eager - steps forward. "I'm sorry, I know this is isn't the best place, but my schedule - my work, it's complex. But I wanted to see you. I - "

He looks over his shoulder, the implication being that he wants Aizawa to give them some space, even though he'd rather prefer he stayed just to sell this properly. He's no doubt that Matsuda's watching out the window, and of course Aiber will manage to have an eye on him. There's no convincing he and Watari, however, and he's not aiming for that. He just needs the other investigators to have no doubt about how separate this situation is from the Kira investigation and, as a bonus, maybe tie up a few nasty loose ends in the meanwhile.

Aizawa holds up one hand, putting out his cigarette with the other, indicating that he'll be gone in a moment. That's okay, though, since his father is just arriving, and Misa - well, she knows her cue.

Mikami shakes his head before anything can particularly happen, though, and says, "Please don't. I really don't want this to be anything but a formal termination of our - of whatever agreement we had before." He starts speaking even though Aizawa's still there, and once it begins it doesn't seem as if he can stop it. "I'm not clear on the parameters, as you didn't exactly consult me extensively, but I don't want - this nonsense about a girlfriend and the secret apartment? It's a bit too complicated and although I do like you, Yagami-kun, I feel it would be immoral of me to continue with it, knowing what I do now."

Light wants to grin but his face flashes hurt and he takes a step forward, reaching out. "Teru - "

"Please, Yagami, I - "

"Teru, can we at least talk about this first? I understand, I do, but…" He gets as close as he can manage and Mikami, seemingly frozen, doesn't take a step back. Light's fingers brush the edge of his cheek and he can see his father's steps stopping, eyes going wide in the background. And he thinks, _now, now, now_.

And _now_ is when it happens.

"I knew it! I knew it I knew it _I knew it!_ " Misa's squealing is sharp and uncomfortable on the front steps, her voice breaking on the last word as she comes around the corner. "You said you would sort it out, but this is what you meant, isn't it? You said you stop with him, with _all of them_!"

Heh, he hopes the implication that there are more men will put Mikami off of him indefinitely, because nice looking as he is, Light really doesn't want to deal with maintaining a relationship with _him_ on top of all the others, with the varying in degrees of realness and falseness and the fault-line in between.

"Misa," Light says, turning sharply to meet her eyes.

She moves quickly, a pretty little blur of pale blue and creme white - dressed in her set costume rather than the usual black on black - and Light reaches for her on instinct. She passes him by, going straight for Mikami, little body moving between them with surprising force.

"Just who the _hell_ do you think you are?" she squeaks, anger merging into something more pathetic than not, as she jams a manicured nail against Mikami's well tailored suit, poking him right in the chest. "Going around, sleeping with other people's boyfriends, like you have any right! Like you - how could you - "

Mikami's looking at her with wide eyes and from the way he stutters around the apology - "I - I'm sorry, I didn't mean," - Light assumes that Misa has started in on the tears. If he's perfectly honest, he'd have to admit that he's rather impressed. She's certainly not selling it short.

Misa huffs and turns sharply before Mikami can even finish his apology, spinning to face Light. "And you! How could you? You promised me, you promised, you - "

"Misa, please, not here. Can we talk about this somewhere else? You're making a scene." He tries to sound kind but firm, but the look Mikami gives him - sharp and wrought with an awkward sort of judgement - tells him he's not being nice enough. "I don't want to hurt you," he tries, putting boyish desperation into his tone, "it's just very complicated and - "

" _Fuck you_! Fuck you, Light. I did _everything_ for you, I would do _anything_ , but you don't even see and you don't even care and I can't make you and I can't help how I feel and I just wish you would leave, I wish you would disappear, I wish I never had to see you again, I wish I could - I - "

Her voice snaps there, utterly breaking, destroying itself and the she is sobbing, not falling into him, not touching, just wrapping her thin little arms around herself. She looks like a child. A little girl who's lost her favorite toy. As that toy, he can't quite manage to feel sympathy for her, but he understands that this is real resentment, real loathing mixed in with the worship. If anything, he's appreciative of her effort, but he doesn't feel much more than that.

Mikami on the other hand, looks like he would like to say something, to do something to help - and what a moral little man he is - but he just takes a few steps backwards. Moral but impotent, the way so many are, and justice and emotion do not mix well. Misa is all emotion, and so not matter her devotion to Light and his cause, she will never quite be a worthy disciple. She's proving that she has some worth here and now, however.

"Misa, please," he says, feeling Aizawa's eyes on his back, his father's on his front, "can we talk about this?"

She slaps him across the face.

"I don't want to talk to you," she say flatly, tears stalling on her cheeks. He stares at her and for a moment it's completely organic. He maybe should have been, but he wasn't expecting that.

Before he can think of the next thing to say, a way to keep the scene going - it's a little riveting, throwing it all out there, even cloaked in soapy melodrama - Misa's already walking away. Her thick white heels click on the concrete. His father is frozen, looks like he's cycling through the information, trying to sort and catalogue it. Aizawa is quiet and still, letting it all pass.

Mikami, if anything, looks embarrassed. He watches Misa depart with thin, processing eyes, before turning back to Light. "My sympathies," he says.

"You don't - " Light starts, a little amused, but not letting an inch of it show in his voice.

"I apologize for my part in all this," Mikami continues firmly. "Goodbye, Yagami."

Light watches him go and tries not to laugh uproariously.

 

\---

 

Beyond takes one of Watson's overcoats - a little short in the sleeves, but about the right size otherwise - and combined with the jeans and t-shirt and wild hair and gut-rot expression that flickers glassy in his eyes, he should look like a homeless person. One of those scary types that yells at you from street corners, bottle of cheap liquor clutched in one hand. When they step out onto the street though, something shifts in B and he blends effortlessly with the crowd, like a deranged little chameleon.

Mello is hardly so successful and he stumbles along, trying to keep up, before B finally huffs amusedly and wraps his large fingers around Mello's wrist, tugging him along firmly. The touch is odd and it prickles through Mello, but Beyond's energy has changed so fully in the calm light of day, and it's not half as terrifying as it would have been an hour ago.

They stop to mail the packages with questionable anonymity - as in, at the post office - but B says not to worry about it, that they won't be found. Mello thinks they're probably more conspicuous than most patrons, him with his leather and B with his… everything, but they don't draw any lasting looks and he's comfortable with letting B handle this part. All these parts. Mello is here for L and L only.

Afterwards they take the underground to an even seedier part of London than the one they'd started in - which is saying quite a bit - and then weave through back alleys and odd bends until they reach one ramshackle door with a bent knocker and chipped green paint.

_Syd's Tattoo and Piercing Stud_ , reads the curly lettering on the window. Maybe it read _Studio_ at one point, but it doesn't now.

"What are we doing here?" Mello grits, shaking his arm out of B's grip.

Beyond grins wide, shifting back into its usual jagged leer, and he taps Mello's chin with a crooked finger as the door jingles open. "I'm thinking something Germanic for you. A cross, maybe. That is your heritage, isn't it?"

Mello frowns, following B into the shop. "You're kidding," he says.

"Naturally," B returns, though Mello can't tell if he's answering or just tittering to himself. He sprawls across the counter, smudged as it is with dark ink, long body moving with unnatural undulation.

If B has brought him here for a tattoo, Mello wouldn't be particularly surprised. Alternately, if he'd just popped into the first shop he'd seen in order to kill the unsuspecting proprietor, Mello wouldn't be particularly surprised by that either.

There's a bell on the counter and Beyond slams his finger into it repeatedly. "Oh, Syd, my dear old pal!" he calls. "I know you're home, lover-boy, no need to play coy!" There's no response, but a bit of clanging from the back of the shop.

B smiles. He flicks his eyes to Mello, eyebrows popping, and politely excuses himself before vaulting over the counter in one smooth jump.

Mello's skin prickles. "You're not gonna kill the guy, are you?" he calls after B, but he's disappearing into the back before Mello can get a proper response. Sighing heavily - he's tired, hasn't showered, can still smell the blood dried on his clothes - Mello follows.

Syd is a scrawny man, maybe in his late thirties, with a shaved head and tattoos of cartoon animals covering most of his visible skin. There's Mickey Mouse on one shoulder and Bugs Bunny on the other and a few ducks that Mello doesn't recognize peeking out of the v-neck collar of his shirt. He is climbing backwards out the window while trying to look like he isn't and when he sees B there is a staunched, familiar terror that brightens his eyes and coils the muscles in his neck all wrong. He looks like someone who has been told in explicit detail exactly when and how he is going to fie.

Beyond hasn't yet said anything.

"B," he says, voice small, unlike what Mello thinks the voice of a man with needles in his eyebrows should sound like. His hand shakes on the windowsill, body fizzing like static. "Hey."

B smiles wide as he glides over, moving with peculiar grace and managing, despite the clutter and disorganization and miscellaneous furnishings, not to brush a single object as he travels across the room.

"I'm charmed that you remember me."

Syd smiles twitchily, looks like he may break into hysterical tears at any moment, and says, "You're not an easy fellow to forget." Then, in the next moment, he's tossing a cabinet at B and scrambling across the room, past Mello and through the door in under a second, a look of wild exertion flying past in the one-blink glance Mello gets of him.

Instinctively, he follows, and maybe he'll end up being an accomplice to murder but maybe he is already, and anyway, there's a keen and uncontrollable spark of pride that lights him up at the moment of contact as he tackles Syd to the dusty tile floor. He feels useful, in a brute muscle sort of way, but useful nonetheless, instead of like a child that B is leading around by the hand. And really, if there's a candidate for _worst person in the world to help out_ , Beyond is definitely nominated - but still. Desperate times and whatnot.

He stands in the doorway, watching Mello grapple with Syd's bucking panic, holding him down with clenched knees and quick hands. Agility over strength, L had always said, and Mello had failed before - the other night, with Watson. He'd failed. He could have been raped and probably killed and he couldn't stop it. He couldn't - he -

He notices a few moments too late that he's possibly shoving Syd down a bit too hard and only gets his grip to loosen as B says, "Careful now, we don't want break him quite yet."

Syd snorts, body going limp with resignation. "That's bloody comforting, isn't it?" he huffs, then blinks up at Mello. "Hello," he says, with a queer, shivering humor, "I'm Syd."

Mello stares back down at him and doesn't know what to say. What do you say? He knows how to hit people and how to run and how to keep his mouth shut and how to yell at the top of his lungs and _demand_ things, but he doesn't know how to introduce himself. Especially not mid-straddle.

"Who's the boy, then?" Syd asks, eyes flicking to B. He still looks like he expects to have his organs ripped out at any moment, but like he now intends to suffer it with good cheer.

B smiles, sitting down cross-legged on the floor next to where they're tangled. He leans his cheek on his open palm and regards them like a vaguely interesting piece of amateur art. "Think of him as my apprentice."

"I'm not your apprentice," Mello snaps, feeling capable enough of arguing, if nothing else. He looks back at Syd. "I'm not his apprentice."

"I'm my experience," Syd says with his bright eyes, "it's safer to just go with whatever he says."

"You just tried to run away," Mello points out.

"Fight or flight instinct," Syd counters, "and there's no fighting Freddie and Jason's illegitimate offspring, is there?" He flicks his cornered grin at B for a moment, then looks back to Mello. "So, is there any chance of you letting me up then, sport?"

Mello tenses up at the mention of the position, preparing to hold his own if he needs to. If only to prove that he can. "Are you going to run?" he asks lowly.

"Of course he's going to run," B says, before Syd can open his mouth to respond. "He's a runner, my dear friend Syd." He's leaning so close he looks like he he could topple onto them at any moment, but Mello supposes the point of Beyond is that he won't. No matter how close he seems to collapse, utter disintegration, his bones and blood and hair and smile all stick together, moving as a curious, jaunty horror of a person.

"Friend?" Syd says skeptically, smooth head rolling on the floor like he's resigned himself to being comfortable there.

"Of course," B says, sounding vaguely insulted by his doubt.

"B, you _cut my girlfriend's foot off_ ," he says, sounding more annoyed than horrified and Mello's whole body freezes and shakes with it, because of course, of course, of course he did that. He does that. That's what he does.

B rolls his eyes. "You're still not over that? Come on, she was already dead."

Syd's teeth grit and his smile quivers a little. He looks like he wants to press the point, but he doesn't. Instead, his body goes loose under Mello's, slumping back against the floor in resignation. "Alright, alright, what are you here for, then? What do you want?"

B smiles and rocks in his seat. "Passports!" he says, like an excited child. "One for the boy and a new one for me since the last one burned up. United Kingdom for both, and best not to put him over 18 since that'll make them suspicious. Pick any age you want for me, I'll make it work. Nothing too old though, mind, or I'll cut one of your limbs off while you're fully conscious for it, okay?"

He smiles, tugging Mello off of Syd and pulling him up. "Best get started as soon as possible. Want me to order a Chinese?"

 

\---

 

He calls Misa with his first moment alone, fingers moving solidly over his cellphone keypad.

"I'm actually impressed," he says when the line clicks live. He maybe expects uneven breaths and girlish sniffling, but what he gets is silence.

Then: "Well, I am an actress." She's smiling. He can hear her smiling. It sounds real.

But then, _she is an actress_.

He rolls his eyes. It's raining again outside and the building he'd left L in doesn't have heat and he can't decide whether to care about that or not. Good and evil and the split-line in between and it's all swirling around in him. "I could have sworn it was method," he says, fixing his tie in the reflection of the bakery across the street. "For every way you love me, I'm pretty sure you hate me in two more."

"Don't be silly," she says, sounding perfectly cheery. "I love you better than anyone else around."

He snorts. "Considering the competition, that's not very comforting."

"You've never asked me to comfort you. If you do, I will. I'll do whatever you ask, you know that."

He imagines her tears still dried on her face, make-up runny and wrong. Her heels off and her small legs curled under her on a chair somewhere, maybe at home. She's going to move out. They'd agreed on it beforehand. Get a new place and leave him the apartment so that he doesn't have to move back in with his parents. That sacrifice might have made the whole worth of the "break-up" null. Does it count as a break-up if they were never really dating?

Does it count as not dating if he's going to what he'd promised her he'd do, in exchange? A deal is a deal, after all. Or, at least, it is when the person you've made the deal with has got leverage in the form of a lovelorn death god floating at her side.

"Will you change your mind about this?" he asks, mostly just as a formality. He doesn't expect her to and he doesn't particularly need her to.

She does an airy little giggle into the receiver and he rolls his eyes on instinct. "I knew you'd tried to wiggle out of it. Rem won't like that one bit, you know."

He knows, and nods resignedly, even though she can't see it. "Tonight, then?" he says. "I have to stop in with - my friend." He looks over his shoulder. Aizawa and his father have gone inside but he can feel eyes on him, the camera's probing against the taut line of his spine. Even if they can't pick up what he's saying, he's better off too cautious than not cautious enough. He hopes Misa manages to understand the nuance. "I said I'd bring him some dinner. He's a lonely guy. If you send… one of your friends out to visit with him, I'm sure we'd all appreciate it. Either will do."

Rem and Ryuk have about the same amount of drawbacks when it comes to serving as guards, so he won't insist on one over the other. Rem is somewhat in league with L and her loathing for Light can be nothing but detrimental, but on the other hand, her feelings for Misa make her manipulatable. Ryuk has no emotional stake in this at all - boredom aside, he may not even have emotions - and a firm resolve to not join sides, but he's also unable to be seen by L and very unlikely to make a deal with him.

"I'll send Ryuk," she says, after a thoughtful pause. "Rem would rather stay with me. Do you have an address?"

"He'll find it," Light says. He almost flips the phone closed with that but, with a sudden spark of deprecating humor, adds, "See you tonight. Make sure to wear something pretty."

If Misa hears the vague disgust in his voice, she ignores it. Her voice tinkles squeakily over the line. "You, too."

Light slips his phone into his pocket. Tonight he has to bring L a bed and a decent supply of water. Tonight he has to rewrite all his notes, redraw all his plans, and make sure that everything adds up to a tee. Tonight he has to, for the first time in his life, have sex with a girl.

He'd never been so grateful for a long day with the investigation team.

 

\---

**tbc.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> end notes: i decided to save my WAH WHY IS THIS CHAPTER NOT AS GOOD AS I WANT IT TO BE whining until the end notes, but (seeing as this is a constant) i'll limit it to this: we're in a bit of a transition period right now, so - ideally - it will pick up soon and there will be less scattered povs and more focused action. fingers crossed and all that.
> 
> once again, thank you ecstatically if you've managed to stick with this story this far in. my hat off to you. and to the new readers (some of whom messaged me on tumblr quite recently) thank you for giving this story a chance. i appreciate all of it so so much i can't really verbalize it. see you in the next few weeks, hopefully!


	17. small worlds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! okay, just over two weeks isn't so bad. it's better, anyway. i promise this is the last chapter before things start to pick up and, well, happen. the theoretical full mello + b chapter is not a theory anymore so much as a reality, and will be coming to you next chapter. i hope you like mello pov. and uh, gore? i hope you like this fic, actually, and though i am still not fully satisfied with this chapter, but i edited it a substantial amount, so it will have to do.
> 
> thank you very genuinely to everyone who reviewed last time. you guys keep me chugging along, i swear, and it makes me so so happy every time i get a review. (also shhhhhh don't laugh at the fact that this week's quote is an arctic monkeys lyric.)

_"If you're gonna try to walk on water / make sure you wear comfortable shoes."_  
 _Piledriver Waltz_ , Arctic Monkeys

 

\---

 

"Smile! Oh, but don't smile too much. It's a passport photo, after all, and those are never big fun for anyone."

Syd sticks the lens in his face and flashes a couple of shots of him against a clean backdrop. Mello doesn't smile at all. Across the room, Beyond is devouring Kung Pao chicken by the mouthful, mumbling something that gets lost in his chewing in a way that is startlingly reminiscent of L. Startling because of how natural and unmeasured it seems. The rest of his adopted mannerisms are self-evidently stitched on, like new arms on an old marionette, but this may as well have been there from the start.

All disguises and dysfunction aside, L and B are similar in mundane, unintended ways. They are, after all, both just people - which is a hard thing to remember most times, in both cases.

"Chin up, Mihael," Syd says, brow scrunching up in artistic contemplation, or else mild indigestion - it's hard to tell. "That's the 'I rob liquor stores and leave my spliff butts on people's lawns' face. Security won't be so up on it. Try not to look so displeased for a moment, will you?"

Mello frowns, arms crossing instinctively across his chest. This is just his face. "Don't call me that," he says.

"What? Your name?"

"That's not my name," he snaps, before he really thinks it through. It may as well not be. No one calls him that, except B, and he hardly wants to take the man writing what look like Egyptian hieroglyphs on the wall in soy sauce as the prime reference for his interpersonal relationships. Then again, he doesn't really have anyone else these days.

"It's not?" Syd flicks his eyes to B, setting the camera down - evidently resigned to Mello's facial expression - who just rolls his shoulders in uneven, bony clicks.

He doesn't look away from the art installation going on on the wall, chopsticks tracing stylized little shapes in dull, fading brown. "I just read my lines," he says, with trilling amusement. "Baby can call himself whatever he likes, but Mihael is what it says in red, so it's what I say. Anything else and it gets far too confusing, like rubbing your belly and patting your head."

Syd's brow twitches and he distracts himself for a moment trying it out. Mello huffs, slumping uncomfortably out of Syd's studio lights. He says he usually uses this room for shooting photos of tattoos - "It's great if they're all over, because some of the birds will take their clothes of," - but currently it's serving as the starting point for the manufacture of illegal passports. Evidently Syd runs an extra business on the side, or at least does now, at B's insistence. Mello wonders how long and well they've known each other, and how anyone could possibly get to know Beyond Birthday at all without ending up dead or at least mildly dismembered. His discomfort ultimately outweighs his curiosity, however, and he doesn't ask.

"I'm not sure what that even means," Syd says. He looks at Mello. "Do you understand what that even means?"

Mello wants to say something clever in response, but doesn't. Can't quite think of something and can't really get his lips to move, besides. He's almost afraid of speaking to Syd. He's afraid of what might come out.

Let me go home. Please, I just want to go home.

But this ferrety little man with cartoons inked across his skin could not be his savior if he wanted to. And Mello does not need saving to begin with. He has a a job to do. He has L waiting on the other end of some plane ride to some place. Japan. He's going east. B is going to take him east.

Beyond just smiles at the both of them, sticking the chopsticks into the side of his mouth and waving his hands theatrically as he says, " _Magic_ ," in a half-garbled jolt of his vocal chords.

"Oh yes, you and your magic tricks," Syd mumbles, his offbeat humor still edging the words, even though he's clearly not enjoying the situation. "I'm sure it would have saved a lot of needless trouble if you'd taken my advice and joined up with the carnival folk years ago."

B snorts. "And, like I said, my upbringing won't allow it." He shoots an overly pronounced wink Mello's way, perhaps just because that - if anything - is what they have in common. Wammy's. L. The man behind the curtain, pulling his levers and spinning his dials. "I'm too refined for that sort of thing." He follows the assertion up by licking his soy sauce scrawling off the wall, then smacking his lips gaudily. "Now, if the boy's all done, I'm ready for my close-up."

He hops up from where he'd been sprawled across the dingy art desk, leaving a mess of papers in his wake, despite having set them all in neat, perfectly organized piles before the food had arrived.

He swoops around Mello and falls raggedly in line with Syd's camera, smirk dissolving instantly into an utterly unremarkable expression of calm sobriety. The switch takes place in the small instant before the flash, but afterwards stays plastered on like it's his natural facial expression. It strikes Mello then that maybe B really isn't the way he is, and that it's all just a show, a carnival act of his own. But no sane man could feign madness so well, and wouldn't have any reason to. The mad, however, have much more incentive to teach themselves how to disappear into the dull thrum of normalcy.

Beyond Birthday is utterly out of his mind. He just happens to be a remarkable actor.

According to what Watari had always told them, the latter is just one more similarity to L.

 

\---

 

She stays the night and sleeps in an unused staff room and has breakfast on the balcony because the dining room is too loud.

"This orphanage has too many children in it," she'd told Roger the night before, when he'd asked what she thought of the place. "I really can't make myself believe they're all geniuses."

"Any child is a genius," he'd said, eyes caving in at the sides with his smile, "if you allow them to be." He'd been called away not ten minutes later because one of the students had broken his leg climbing onto the roof to look for his lost frisbee. Wedy hadn't remarked at the irony. She hadn't needed to.

It's a classic English breakfast and she doesn't touch much except for the coffee, blowing smoke into the cool whistle of the wind as she watches the odd car pass by on the small country rode that peels off at the end of the driveway, counting the passengers and making up stories about everyone she sees. Investment banker, mid-forties, leaving his wife without a word and not intending to come back. Drunk driver, late-teens, tired of her life and hunting for a nice tree to wrap around. Married couple, three kids and all out of the house, looking forward to their first vacation alone in years and years.

Small, unnoticed worlds. She likes to notice them. She likes to slip into people's lives and take something purportedly precious and watch them not notice at all. It's only museums that make a big stink about something going missing, and only because they need to keep up appearances. In reality, ownership is a fickle thing and people aren't half as attached to their _this_ and their _that_ as they like to think they are.

She doesn't really care overmuch for things, either, but she likes scaling walls and disarming security systems and staying still and quiet, and doing all that for nothing just _isn't done_.

It's all just keeping up appearances.

The boy from yesterday joins her after a quarter of an hour, slumping out on lanky legs that that stretch too far for his body to calculate. He looks uneven, like a seedling that's had half its leaves plucked off already. He sits down on the rocking chair next to her and lights up his cigarette. 

"They're sending you to look for Mello, aren't they?" he asks, after too long a pause.

"Who?" Wedy hums, not looking at him. She knows who he means - Roger has shown her a picture, had said to keep an eye out - but she thinks the boy will probably tell it better.

"He left here a few weeks ago," Matt, if that's his name, says. "Everyone but me thought he'd come back by now. They must be starting to panic."

"Hmmm." Wedy smudges her cigarette out on the arm of her chair, then traces the stain idly with one long fingernail. "It's fascinating," she says, "how confident all you little prodigies are, even in your spotty guesswork."

Her fingers smudge black and Matt frowns. There's a long, full silence as the wind hushes through the trees, rustling the pines and making everything smell sharper for an instant. Like a lull in existence. A lone car passes, small and green and pumping out dark fumes and further greying the grey air. There's what looks like a whole family inside. Someone is singing along to the radio. Small worlds.

"Why'd you tell me you were L's wife?" Matt asks after a little bit. 

Wedy looks at him then. He's all mealy paleness and smattered freckles and dirty hazel eyes and he has the evident disposition of one who struggles with the process of making and maintaining facial expressions, though there's decent bone structure somewhere under the scrunch of his boyish cheeks and dull frown.

"Why didn't you believe me?" she counters.

The crevice between his eyebrows deepens a bit. "L wouldn't ever get married. I doubt he's even capable of having romantic feelings. Rellen swears up and down he's got to be asexual."

Wedy can't quite keep down her grin, so instead she forms it so if fades into the cool morning, a sharp blot of red lipstick and teething amusement.

"That's why," she says. "They've convinced you all that you're the little pinnacles of everything in this place, but none of you know a thing about the world, nor about your illustrious leader. Your friend with the funny name had the right idea, skipping out early. If he's not dead, he'll be better off for it."

"He's not dead," Matt says, too quickly, and then goes a vague, unsettled red and looks away. "You're right about this place being a self-aggrandizing little hellhole, but - but it's not as if there's anything out there that's much better. There's no particular point to trying to be the next L, sure, but then there's no particular point to anything."

Wedy watches another car pass. Her smile doesn't let up. "L was married once," she says, and enjoys the slight shift in the air as Matt freezes up beside her. "It was only for 26 days and it was under a fake name, but still. There's more to him and there's more to the world than you're ever going to figure out from here."

She waits for him to respond, but he doesn't, and after a moment she turns her eyes back to him, pushing herself up. Her boots make clicking sounds across the wood of the desk and his eyes follow her all the way to the door.

"His is not the trail I've been put on," Wedy says over her shoulder, "but I'll keep an eye out for your friend, if you want."

He still doesn't respond and so she just pops her eyebrows, reaching for the doorknob, and it's only just as she's stepping inside that she hears his voice trailing after her. He stubs out his cigarette on the brick wall beside the doorframe and follows her in.

He says, "I want to go with you."

Small worlds. That's all it is.

 

\---

 

L devises sixteen plans of escape, mentally running through each one of them until he finally falls asleep at number twelve. It's perhaps exhaustion and perhaps a slight hangover but mostly, he assumes, just delirious hunger. He counts the tiles in the ceiling as he drifts off, and forms constellations in the off-white plasterboard, mapping the stars and tracing the slants of reality across it. He sees the smooth space between the top of Light's mouth and the bottom of his nose. He sees the church fading in and out of view. He can't remember now if the image he sees in his mind's eye is how it had actually looked that first night or just something he'd conjured up to fill the space.

There are thoughts that he can't tell from memories that he can't tell from dreams. Sometimes he smells B's semen when he's straddling the two sides of consciousness. Sometimes he tastes his sweat. Sometimes he hears his bad 80's records. Sometimes he just hears bad 80's records, ones that have nothing to do with and no association to anything in his life. Sometimes he sees Light standing over him.

Like now. Light is standing over him right now. He looks quite handsome.

L blinks and his eyes feel heavy and his mouth tastes like dryer lint and rubbing alcohol. "Sorry," he says. He's apologizing. He's just apologized. Like his falling asleep was some sort of social faux pas. Like Light isn't his captor and he isn't chained to an air conditioning unit and collapsed on the floor. Like L cares an inch about social decorum.

Light frowns and it's somewhat practiced. "What for?"

L sits up, blinking. "I'm not really sure. Hello. How are you? How's your day been and where is something that I can eat?"

A plastic convenience store bag lands of his chest. "I got all the cheap candy bars I could find," Light says. "Rice, too."

L sits up, the world shifting with him. "I don't like rice."

"You need to eat something with actual nutritional value or you'll die."

"I haven't yet," L says. He unwraps something he can't quite see in the low lighting and bites into it. Mmmmhhh, chewy. "Coffee?"

Light sets down a cup on the floor next to him, and then another. A moment later, his bent knees are following and then he's sitting cross-legged beside L, newspaper tucked up under his arm and eyebrows drifting up like a hazy businessman.

"Coffee this late?" L asks idly, sounding uninterested. He thinks he probably is uninterested. He's too tired to tell. He gulps from his own cup and it burns his tongue, but he doesn't wince the way he'd expected to. It's already sweetened. Nine sugars, just how he likes. Light really is turning into the darling housewife, isn't he? If only they had a house. As it is, they've got an air-conditioning unit and a chain and a mutual hangover. It's perhaps enough. 

"I'll need it," Light says, flicking his bangs neatly out of his eyes.

L gulps his coffee as Light sips his and it's quiet through-out the building, only scant echoes from outside and the soft drops of a pipe leak somewhere making audible noise. There's no heat in the building because no one's paying the bills for it and a chill creeps up and down, locking onto L's body like a second set of clothes.

"Are you cold?" Light asks, after a moment.

L has to think about it. "Yes."

Then he hears a coffee cup being set down and feels the radiating warmth of Light invading his personal space - and the word _invasion_ is so apt, is a perfect description of the utterly surrounding, overtaking feel of him. He doesn't even kiss L and doesn't quiet touch him really, just leans in and breaths on him and smiles his unsatisfied, lonely smile.

"Misa's moving out," he says, after a bit. "Everything went according to plan."

L attempts to shovel more candy into his mouth around the line of Light's shoulders. It's perhaps not the most seductive thing he could do but then he's got no particular desire or reason to seduce and, beyond that, he's fucking starving.

"And the man? Mikami?" he asks.

Light jerks slightly and it takes L a moment to realize that he's laughing. "Teru Mikami, attorney at law. He's taken care of, too. Don't worry about it. There's Rem and a few minor things with Misa, but that aside, the only thing standing in my way is… well," - L can taste his unpracticed amusement in the air - " _you_."

L swallows, washing down the too-hot coffee, and feels heavy. He paws at Light's chest with one hand, tugging him a bit closer.

"The Dead Sea," he says, into the feathered ends of hair that fall across his ears. "It's so salty that nothing can live in it, aside from microscopic bacteria and fungi. Watari took me there when I was rather young for a case wrapped up in the Israel/Palestine dispute. I stood next to it and imagined taking my clothes off and diving in. I knew someone would fish me out immediately and I'd get a stern lecture about lack of professionalism whenever Roger heard about it, but I wanted to anyway. I didn't." He blinks over Light's shoulder, at the twinkling streetlights out the far, far window. "I'd like to be able to go back there someday, just to have the option. I'd like to live long enough. I'd like to take you with me, perhaps."

He skims his hand down Light's back, fingers tracing the line of his spine. He's very beautiful, still. Perhaps should become less so or more so, but he doesn't. He stays the same. He has locked himself in his own glass case. L breathes in the soft scent of his hair, all product and cologne and pampered exhaustion.

He maybe expects something monumental, but what Light says is just, "Who's Roger?" with a tilt of dissatisfaction to his voice.

L pulls back from him. "No one you need to know right now."

Light blinks. "But I will at some point? What, like taking me home to meet the parents? I doubt you'll ever quite make it there."

L rolls his eyes, biting into another candy bar, the label of which he hadn't bothered to read. "If you're still pretending that you have any intention of killing me, you should stop now and expend your energy on something else. The effort is rather charming, Light, but - "

"Chew, then speak."

"I'm a busy man, I have to multitask."

Light's lips run along the ridges where his eyebrows are starting to grow back in. It's not a kiss, but it might have been intended as one. "You're not a busy man anymore."

L shifts his eyes, swallows, and says, "Roger's my other handler, that's all."

"You have quite a lot of handlers, don't you?" Light says. "Makes sense, I suppose. You're a lot to handle."

That conjures images and firm fingers and much groping and were L in a more satisfied and less hungry, tired, and itchy frame of mind, he would take it upon himself to enact such handling on Light's body, for how it presses against him. It's not sexual, or maybe it is, but he can't tell. It's like a hug except Light is not the type of person to hug so it's more like nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing, but all over each other.

"Just the two of them," he says, against Light's jaw. "And you now, I suppose."

Light laughs loosely, warm breath fluttering against his skin, and says, with exaggerated accommodation, "And can I get you anything, Sir?"

L hums. "Well, actually - "

"Oh, no, no. I was joking." He pulls back slightly, but the humor is still bright across his face, sedate and lonely as it is. "I don't want to know what you want, but I can hazard enough guesses. Something you can eat, or fuck, or both, yes?"

"Neither. Something I can read. Although, if it happened to be both edible and sexually arousing, I wouldn't be averse - "

Light rolls his eyes, jabbing L slightly in the ribs, and it hurts just enough to cut him off but not enough for him to particularly mind. Even if it had hurt more he wouldn't particularly mind. His bones still ache from last night and there's chafing on his thighs and a slow turn of exhaustion in his head, but not in a way that he dislikes. He doesn't know that he remembers how to dislike or like things at the moment. It's all just airy surface, reality twitching between them and Light's knees knocking his and the slow drip of the leaky pipe in the background.

"In all seriousness," L continues, back slumping restfully against the wall, even as the caffeine lights him up a bit, "you'll need to bring me any new files in the police database on the Kaito Hidaka case. Don't bother reprinting the ones I had before, I've got them all memorized - although I wouldn't mind having my notes back, but I suppose you've thrown them away?"

"Shredded and burned," Light says.

"Shredded _and_ burned? Why'd you have to shred them first? You do know how fire works, don't you? There's a caveman joke I could make but - "

"I was just going to shred but that seemed under-cautious," Light says, slumping with him. "The last thing I want to be caught out over is your terrible handwriting being so recognizable even in tiny little pieces. Where did you learn penmanship, a barn? If anyone's got room to make a caveman joke, it's me."

"Yes," L agrees, nodding lazily, "but you don't make jokes."

"I do," Light returns, but he doesn't sound particularly invested in the sentiment. "I'm extremely clever for my age. Everyone's always said so." There is self-deprecation in his voice, or else just general deprecation at the expense of the world.

"Yes, yes, you're the golden child and the prodigy. So was I. What a coincidence, eh?" He doesn't mean that seriously and Light doesn't take it seriously and is maybe going to respond in kind, but L skips over that, tapping the pads of his fingers to a slow rhythm against the dusty floors and taking another gulp of coffee. He says, "I want something to read, also. There's too much time when you're not here and when you are here I'd like to have something to throw at you."

"You seem pretty practiced at throwing yourself," Light says, smirking, but not unkindly.

"Ah," L says, without an inch of humor, "there he goes with the jokes again. Maybe you should just retire from this whole God thing and become a comedian. I'm sure plenty of people would come to your shows, if only for the face. Maybe for more if you wore revealing clothing."

"Oh, and now _you're_ being funny," Light says, rolling his eyes and wiping at the loose drops of coffee that dribble down L's chin. "That's actually disgusting," he says. "You're quite disgusting, did you know?"

L closes his eyes and seeps into the feel of Light's fingers against him. "It's been suggested to me before."

He's just about to put in a request for _The Brother's Karamazov_ and maybe _Swann's Way_ \- in the original Russian and French, respectively, if at all possible, but Japanese will do if it's what's available - when there's a noise from the far left and both of their heads snap towards it, like twin dogs picking up a whistle. L frowns, wonders if this the moment they've been waiting for and dreading in equal measure - drumroll please - but doesn't move. Light gives him a look like he expects it's his fault, even if he's not yet sure how, and stands cautiously.

The sound comes again, the creak of a door, and then it fades off into quieter, staccato taps. Footfalls. Someone is walking through the hallways.

Someone in heels.

L's guard drops quite a bit when he spots Misa coming around the corner, Rem at her shoulder, but Light's seems to go up even more. His shoulders tense, posture rigid, and if L was a bit closer he might dig his fingers into the muscle and work him smooth and soft again. As if he has ever been smooth and soft, or anything but a ragged little panic attack in khakis.

His energy shifts even more on edge then with Misa's appearance, though, and - as if meeting him pace for pace - she's decked out even more so than usual, all bracelets and shined leather and thick eyelashes. Her smile is drawn on in pale pink and her eyes are blue again. They're not always. He thinks she must wear contacts half the time. For the performance. She is a performance.

She is oddly cheery today.

Boots skipping on the cool tile, she does an easy little giggle when she glances at them. "Ryuzaki," she says, tapping a black-painted fingernail to her cheek, "you should really put some ice on that, it looks awful." Her eyes dance over to Light. "Ready?"

Whatever invitation she's holding out, he doesn't take it. "How did you know where to find me?" he asks, arms crossing over his chest.

Misa rolls her eyes playfully. "Like it wasn't obvious you'd be with him." The resentment that would normally manifest in such a statement seems pointedly absent and, as much of an actress as she in all things is, L thinks her lack of upset is genuine. What he doesn't quite know is _why_.

Light 's feet are planted firm, and he's not cowering from her so much as he is putting up a very blank and unmovable wall. Not that as much is particularly unusual for him - as it's his primary mode of social presentation - but he usually doesn't quite bother with her. Today he is bothering with her. Today he is bothered.

"I didn't tell you where he would be, though," he says, "if I recall correctly."

L's eyes bob back and forth between them, and it's more like watching a very subdued mud-wrestling match - one of those staged, sexually arousing sorts, with the girls in white t-shirts and pink lipstick. They are both so juvenile and L flits in between feeling very similar and very far-removed.

Misa sighs and examines her nails. "I had Rem go scouting for me," she says, glancing airily over her shoulder. "Right, Rem?" The Shinigami doesn't assent verbally, but blinks her eye solemnly and nods. "I figured," Misa continues, stepping forward with uneasy grace, "that if I didn't come and pick you up myself, you'd forget about our date."

L keeps his face blank and unassuming, even as vague amusement rises in his voice. "Light, you didn't tell me you had plans. I wouldn't have kept you so long. My apologies, Misa-san."

"It's not a date," Light says, his frowning eyes not sparing L a glance.

"Sure it is." There's a quaintly pleased little smile twitching on Misa's lips.

"I'm not buying you dinner."

Misa's smiler only grows. "That's fine. I'll pay. I have more money than you, anyway." 

L snorts, eyes falling shut as he leans back against the wall. "I have more money than both of you combined and I'll buy everyone dinner and dessert too if it will get me a proper mattress to sleep on. Or a futon, a futon will do. I'll even take a desk chair, honestly, I'm not very particular, but this floor is cold and it smells like shoes and I am bored out of my mind and need more caffeine also."

He can't see them, but he assumes they're both looking at him and he likes it that way. Maybe Rem is looking, too. Maybe the other one, if it's even here, is as well. It's funny how easily he does whatever he firmly convinces himself he is not the type of person to do. Misa Amane comes in and puts on a production and he can't stop his lips from moving, from running rabid and stealing the stage. He's not even romantically jealous. He's not even really jealous at all, and it's more pride than emotion that powers the wild voice inside of him that commands, _Look at me._

_Look and see only what I want you to see._

He opens his eyes. Light is not looking at him, but the pointedness of the aversion suggests that he had been. "I'll see what I can do. I might not have time tomorrow but I'll at least bring you some more food. Eat your rice."

L looks down at his rice. He does not want to eat it. He nods anyway.

Before he can get it up to make a proper response, however - something cutting, but reasonable; it's forming in loose imprints in his head - Misa is there, and leaning down over him, pulling something from her bag. Instinctually, he assumes it's pepper spray, or else a blunt object that she intends to hit him with, so when the six pack of canned coffee is set in front of him with a tinny thunk, he's at first not quite sure what to think.

It doesn't look like a particularly expensive brand, but then this is more a _thought that counts_ sort of situation. Still, thought or no thought, there's no way he's going to be able to stomach it without -

Misa drops a fistful of sugar packets on the floor, next to the coffee. She is getting good at this, at playing their games without even bothering to try and compete at their level. Coffee and sugar and a hint of a nod and that is all she offers him, but it's like water in the desert and the way Light frowns at the exchange just makes it all so much cooler and crisper. He is ruining her so she is ruining him is ruining herself is buying dinner and giving gifts and running, running, running to catch up. Normally he'd find that sort of thing annoying, but with the lack of external stimuli of late, Misa Amane and her tragedies - and how they intertwine with Light's - seem terribly interesting to him.

He's supposed to be making her fall in love and Rem is watching him like she expects grand gestures and fancy words and a whole lot of tricks and traps, but that is not how L works. You cannot talk someone into liking you. You can only exist, and do so - if you so choose - in their direction.

"Thank you," he says, because there is little else to be said. There is so much silence and it tires him, but he wants it back suddenly. He needs quiet to think, to sort himself out.

Misa doesn't say, _You're welcome_. What she says is, "Light and I are going to go and have sex now."

Light rolls his eyes, crosses his arms, taps his foot - but doesn't object. "Classy," is all he says, once Misa has straightened up and tapped her pretty little heels back over to him. He barely glances at L as they leave, but manages a, "I'll be back tomorrow," before disappearing down the hall. It's dressed up in disinterest but it reeks of a sedate sort of shame.

L watches them go. Rem stays. He hitches his lips at her in a crude estimation of a smile and she doesn't blink, just shifts her eye over to a blank wall in the far corner of the room. And L can tell then - they are not alone.

Several quiet hours later, he eats his rice.

 

\---

 

It's too late for a proper dinner and he's not hungry and neither is she, so they just order food and then sit there, staring at the tablecloth and trying not to loath each other too obviously. Or he is. She, he supposes, doesn't have to try. It's strange, but for all her love for him, she seems to resent him in equal measure, but it comes in waves of lucidity and realness, rather than the sentiments piling atop one another.

"You're dressed down," she says, flattening her fingers against the tablecloth. She hasn't touched her silverware, and neither has he, but there are finger smudges all over his water glass and the waiter has to keep coming to refill it.

"These are my work clothes. You didn't give me time to change." He says it solidly and with little care, or at least the appearance of little care.

She smiles like daisies and sunny things and all the prettiness she truly lacks. "Oh, I don't mind. I like it. I like you." Her bangs tickler he eyelashes and she leans on the palm of her tiny hand.

Light frowns, leaning back, and says with perfect politeness and evenness of tone. "I really don't think you do, actually."

Misa swallows and her smile quirks wider, but she doesn't respond. The waiter passes by and she lifts her hand for the check. Light folds his napkin and sets it on the table, then takes another long gulp of water. He wonders what L is doing at the moment and assumes it can't be anything wildly interesting, but it's being done with L's body and L's mind and L's spiny fingers, so it appeals to him more than all the shiny surfaces and expensive glassware in the restaurant.

"I love you, then," Misa says.

That - that he can allow her.

 

\---

 

He's curled up on the front stoop of the tattoo shop, watching the night's last passengers tripping down to the tube station a block away. There's a woman in ripped stockings smoking a cigarette across the street, her sparks catching glints from the buzzing streetlights, and B smiles widely at her as he steps out with a bowl in one hand, a glass in the other, and an eyebrow inching toward his hairline.

"You didn't eat," he says, in a matter of fact way, which is both foreign and entirely suitable for him.

Mello takes the bowl of noodles when it's offered and doesn't protest overmuch at the chopsticks stuck into his hand. He's hungry, probably, but it all gets mixed up with the turbulence in him, and the queasy sick feeling of movement after so much stagnation has him reeling internally. He might throw up. He eats his noodles. They're not bad.

B sit down next to him with his glass of something or other and continues to make eyes at the lady across the street.

"Are you going to kill her?" Mello asks, around a mouthful of steamed vegetables.

B does a quant little snigger, which could be a sharp negation or a dramatic assent. Mello can't tell and takes pains to be thankful for the fact that he's really not so well acquainted with Beyond Birthday as to be able to read him all that well. Anything greater and he'd be even more uncomfortable than he already is.

"Oh no, no, no. Can't do and won't do. It's not her time, as the holy men call it, and for all of the wildness, I have to abide by certain rules." B takes a long swallow of his peculiarly orange drink. It's possibly carrot juice, and possibly just paint. With B there's about a 40/40 chance, and another 20 that it's Syd's blood dyed a fun color. "You understand that, don't you, Mihael? It feels like we're making it up as we go along, but we're not, really. There's a path and a plan and patterns, patterns, patterns in everything. You see that, don't you?"

Mello stirs his noodles with idle disinterest, and a stark quietness that he only seems to be able to shake at odd times. "Roger says one of the biggest pitfalls of detective work is seeing patterns where there aren't any. Humans are pattern-seeking and making up a detailed explanation for every random event is how conspiracy theories get started."

B smiles. "Didn't it ever occur to you that maybe dear Roger just told you that so you wouldn't go looking?"

"No," Mello says stolidly.

B smiles wider and his eyes flick across the street to the girl and the mad spark seems to shiver and then fade into something vague and analytical.

"Even allowing that most conspiracies and pattern-based ideas that humanity has concocted have no actual basis in reality, there is a rough margin in scientific research that allows that at least _some_ of them, if only a scant few, must be true, just by sheer numbers."

He blinks and sets down his glass. He smells like carrots.

"There have been thousands of recorded ghost and spectral sightings in the last hundred years," he continues, with a distance to his voice that makes the ridiculousness much less apparent than it might normally be, "and do realize that only one of them needs to be true, in order for ghosts to exist?"

Mello frowns. "When did we go from conspiracies to spooky stories?"

"All the best stories are spooky," B says, the mad sparkle lighting back up in his eyes. The woman across the street stomps out her cigarette with one thick heel and walks around the corner.

Mello watches her go and feels the late evening buzz of somewhere else fading in and out in him. He asks, "What's the difference between killing her and killing Watson and Bert and… that other guy? Since when do you discriminate?"

B snorts almost, but it's a hackneyed, open sound that seems more likely to be snapping vocal chords than amusement. "I'm very PC, my little lover boy, but that's nothing to do with this." He looks over at Mello and doesn't smile, but lets his eyes do their vague, twinkling, wonder things. "I just paint by numbers. I stand where they tell me to and I break what is breakable and nothing else. There are unpleasant casualties sometimes, but I think of them more as a byproduct of nature."

Mello thinks the whole of B's victim's are unpleasant casualties - or not so casual, as it goes - but he's somewhat interested in where Beyond lays the distinction.

"Like the man at the door," B continues. "I don't know him. I don't know his name or his number. He died before I could get it and I can only assume that his number was right, that it matched up with big bad's and little bad's, because he was there and because he likely would not have escaped, but I don't _know_. It's not most of the bodies that haunt me; they're where they're meant to be. It's the blank pieces that jam up the puzzle and give me blind spots all over my eyes." He blinks at Mello. "Does that make sense?"

"No." Mello blinks back.

Beyond frowns at him for a moment and then there's a possibility that's he's going to snap Mello's neck when his arm flies out, and Mello would like to stay he'd either ducked quickly and defended himself or else stayed stock still and unconcerned, but he winces and closes his eyes, bracing for what seems like the logical impact, when he feels B finger's stop beside him, flexing.

"Pretty, isn't she?"

Mello squints his eyes open, the ambient streetlights flickering in and making everything blinding for a moment. Then he sees B's large, spindly hand right in front of him, holding onto a fluttering moth by its wing. It's a pathetic sight, although Mello can't decide if the worst part is the thing's struggles or the look of childish wonder in B's eyes.

"That's cruel," Mello says after a moment, posture relaxing slightly.

"Yes," B says.

"You should let it go. It's suffering."

"Christ suffered. So did the Buddha. Joan of Arc, too. All the great holy figures of the times have made sacraments of themselves, and we mimic it still in this day and age. We all want to be our own gospels. We all throw ourselves to the wind so that it will hang us on the cross." He twirls the insect around like an ornament and Mello watches, slightly sick.

He doesn't want his noodles anymore.

"And then, perhaps," B continues, "we will be loved." He flashes a smile. "That's always the story, isn't it? That's why you're out here."

Mello frowns, swallowing the disgust because it seems counterproductive. He has put so many things on so many shelves in order to survive B's presence without properly confronting it, and the screws holding those shelves together rattle and shake now. "Out here? On the front step?" he asks facetiously, because furious denials seem like too much trouble.

B smiles like he understands and the most ugly part is that he probably does. He seems to understand most things, like he's got a manual for planet earth and every inhabitant and contraption on it stored behind his ear, but he's read it backwards or else skipped every other word, so that the whole picture is swallowed in the irregular little fallacies that sprinkle his existence.

"And what if it doesn't work?" he asks, head tilting in a sharp jut. "What if you put in all the effort and expend so much energy and save the princess in the tower and the princess doesn't give a damn. What if she sends you home with a pat on the head and _well done, kid_. What then?"

Mello's eyebrows quirk and he tries to be more afraid than amused, but sometimes he forgets. "Just so we're on the same page, L is the princess, right?"

B nods and Mello sits back, thinking on it, not relaxed but not half as uncomfortable as he logically should be, in his position. But there's something in Beyond than can make his presence feel very unthreatening and it's seeped into the air now.

"I'll make him understand. I'll make him see me for what I am. I'll prove just what I can do beyond the shadow of a doubt."

The conviction in Mello's voice when he speaks is wavering, but present, and he feels the vague pangs of hope and accomplishment rising from where he'd buried them the other day, lying on the floor of Watson's flat, closer to dying than anyone should reasonably be able to get while staying alive.

"And," B says, "what if he sees what you are and still doesn't want you?"

He's probing and Mello doesn't like it but he doesn't want to posture his way out of it when he knows quite obviously that there are several hundred ways that B could and may kill him at this moment, on this stoop in front of this shitty tattoo shop.

"I don't know," he says, looking down at his noodles and the dirt and cigarette butts under his shoes. It's anticlimactic and it's not the words he wants to say, but everything else seems too cheap, and too terrifying to commit to. He looks back up at B. "Do you think he's going to do that?"

There's a look of something like shock that jags in among B's trilling eyes and he blinks at Mello, as if processing the question, and then shrugs. "No idea. He might do, but then baby-daddy likes to surprise people. Pulls things out of the woodwork, and then works the wood another way. I'm not really set on how he's going to react to you." He twirls the moth around gently, like a new plaything that he's afraid to ruin. "I do, however, have quantities of big, bright ideas. Stratagems and secret plans and diagrams of the end of your little world. But nothing is certain and even numbers change, and yours might, too. Depends how long you stick with me, I suppose."

B keeps talking about numbers and Mello had originally written it off as nonsense, to go with the multitudes of indecipherable things he always says, but it comes up often enough that it's caught his attention. He wants to ask, but then he doesn't particularly want to have to dance around the answer.

"I don't understand you," is all he says, because that seems easiest, and that's him these days - path of least resistance and all that. It's true, anyway.

Beyond stands, smiles, looks like he's taller and broader and _more_ than he truly is, from Mello's slanted angle. "What makes you think you have to?"

Before Mello can settle on an appropriate response, B is shifting, arm muscles going tense as his wrist snaps, crushing the moth in his hand. Mello can see its wings twitch out a few last attempts at continued existence, before going limp and lifeless. Whatever was there before - the scant intelligence and writhing instinct - is gone in an instant and the world feels little changed for it.

It might as well not have happened. The moth might as well have never existed.

There's a cruel asymmetry to it, because as little as the life lost may be worth in the grand scheme of things, it still reflects disgustingly - in an intellectual sense - on Beyond. He is monstrous and he is cruel and he destroys things with what should be a terrifying easiness, and yet, Mello is not afraid. He is hardly bothered by anything but his lack of fear, the ease with which all of this has become commonplace for him.

He feels nothing for the moth and he doesn't like that. He thinks he should.

He thinks he should hate Beyond. He thinks he might, but it's so muted now that he can't properly feel the emotions. Maybe he's in shock. Maybe he's been in shock for days. Maybe he's just resigned himself to the role that he's been given and is content, for now, to let Beyond take the lead and play all the hard parts.

Everything that he doesn't feel tugs at him, rolling inside, and his insides wade and his eyes are stung and it's all to quiet and too still and he asks B, "Are you ever going to explain anything to me?"

B grins wide and drops the moth on the ground beside his shoes. "I'm going to go check on lovely Syd's lovely progress. Finish your noodles and then come inside. Good boys shouldn't be out this late." He turns the knob in one stark palm, the door jingling as he steps inside, and calls over his shoulder, "And don't forget to wash your bowl. If not, we'll get ants."

 

\---

 

Teru does not like Miss Todai.

It's bad enough when he has to see her at work, bringing her father lunch six floors above him - though there he's got plenty of dated and timestamped excuses not to speak with her piled in his inbox folder - but it's far, far worse when she comes to his lectures. He's done two every month for the past semester, all on relatively the same subject, but for an enticing pay and a certain level of prestige that most of the other prosecutors his age and rank haven't come close to. It looks good to his bosses - people like Miss Todai's father - and that's all he needs to know, and in general he pays little mind to the students. Only a few faces stick out in his mind. Yagami's, of course, and then -

"Mikami-san, can we speak about - "

"Apologies, Takada-san, I'm running late for an appointment," he says, lifting his briefcase and quickly moving past her. She's in a a skirt and blouse and has a slightly comical hat perched on top of her head, like she's practicing balancing it there in preparation for becoming someone's society wife.

She could be more than that - is sharp, especially for her age, and evidently quite capable in school - but then there'd be no reason or occasion for her to wear silly hats, a pleasure that she seems incapable of sacrificing.

She smiles and it's very pretty and very fake and Teru's eyes flick to the floor instinctively when he sees it. "I'll walk you to the train, then," she says, following him casually, and in fact walking ahead so that it looks as if he's the one trailing her. "I've got no classes left today and these shoes are much more comfortable than they look."

Teru's legs move faster and his jaw grits. "That's not at all necessary," he says, trying to keep his voice low because he cannot feign pleasantries.

"It doesn't need to be. I wanted to talk to you." Her head turns slightly and she flashes a slip of a smile at him, then inclines forward as if it hadn't happened at all, though now slowing to let him catch up.

"It's not a very long walk," Teru tells her. "Shouldn't it wait until there's more time?"

They move out of the hall and onto the green of the campus with unhurried disinterest in their steps, both rather feigning a lack of perception of the awkwardness that wallpapers the entire conversation. Teru does not like Miss Todai. Miss Todai does not like Teru. She is polite to him, of course, and he is polite to her, but that indicates nothing of their personal feelings. Outward appearance matters only so far as its usefulness and lack of disruption. Anything more is unnecessary and, at worst, damaging.

"It's not a subject that requires extensive discussion," Takada says. "I only wanted to ask if you've had sex with Light Yagami."

She says it so casually, with so little creative inflection, that she may as well be asking if he's ever gone golfing. He has gone golfing. He hates golfing. The game itself is reasonably enjoyable, if not overly productive, but the company is unbearable. The company consists, usually, of men like Takada's father, if not he himself.

He's also had sex with Light Yagami. He stops in the middle of campus, shoes landing neatly in two separate paving squares of the sidewalk, and he frowns at the back of Kiyomi's sweater. Her hat looks at if it's stuck to her head by sheer will alone, rather than any clip or attachment.

Teru does not like Miss Todai.

Teru does not like Light Yagami.

Teru does not like anyone, particularly. The man on channel six who does the morning weather is alright. His intonation is very good and his suits are always neat. Every morning. Teru watches the weather on channel six every morning. It's part of his routine.

Light Yagami had not been part of his routine. Light Yagami's thighs and his bright laughter and the fastidiousness of his hands as they'd unbuttoned Teru's shirt - that had not been part of his routine. The flowers and the empty apartment and the very thin promises and thinner apologies, those had not been planned either, but perhaps should have been expected.

And here, now, talking about this with Kiyomi Takada - and, indeed, talking to Kiyomi Takada at all - is not part of his routine. He'll miss his train. He does not have an appointment and he will not be late - that had been a white lie - but he hates to miss his train.

"Why," Teru says, to the back of Takada's head, "would you ask me something like that?"

She smiles. He cannot see her face but he can hear it. "To find out if it's true, of course." The birds that live in the campus trees are cawing prettily. It's uncrowded at this time of day. "I don't believe in guesses and gossip, Mikami-san, and I don't participate in that sort of thing." She turns slightly to face him. "But, when I come across something that peaks my interest, I'm not afraid to pursue an answer. In situations like these, I find it's best to go to the source. So, here I am."

She smiles her quaint, soft, practiced smile and Teru does not like Miss Todai. He does not like her at all.

"If that's the case," he says, after a moment during which he takes the opportunity to push his glasses up his nose, "then why not ask Yagami himself?"

Takada tilts her head, expression going blank and expectant. "You make it sound as if we're on speaking terms."

"I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be. You were dating him at one point, weren't you?"

"Yes, at one point. And then he disappeared one day, for months on end, with no explanation. And then he came back, also with no explanation. He said hello to me in the hall once, last week, and that's it. That's all. And it's not as if we were particularly close or that I missed him terribly, it's only that the lack of respect demonstrated by that sort of treatment doesn't sit well with me. I'd like to think that there's a reasonable explanation, because I'd like to think well of Light Yagami. But, failing that, I'd like the truth. So," she says, words slowing, tilting her head, "I figured I'd ask about his _treatment_ of you."

Teru bristles, shoving his glasses up his nose, and walks ahead of her. "It's more his treatment of Misa Amane you should be worrying about."

"The model?" Takada asks, following in no great hurry. She almost makes her tracking of him look unintentional, stepping evenly along the sidewalk beside him with no sense of urgency in her steps at all.

"I suppose she is that, yes," Teru says, not looking Miss Todai directly in the face as he speaks. There is nothing genuine in it, and nothing worth registering or retaining. "She looked like any girl to me. She's his girlfriend. As I take it, they're living together."

If Takada is surprised at this news, she doesn't let it show, just keeps up the walk at the same quick but unhurried pace. "Still?" is all she asks. "They're living together still?"

Teru shrugs. "I wouldn't know. Yagami and I are not in contact." It's not a lie.

"Of course, but you understand the implication that I'm getting from that is that you _were_ , and in a very specific sort of way." She arches an eyebrow at Teru, and he barely holds back his blatant scowl in response. Not only is she presumptuous and interfering, she's far too sure of herself.

Nevermind that she's right.

He keeps up his pace. She keeps up hers.

"It figures, I guess. I think I'm insulted. I expect the men I date to have sorted out their sexuality quandaries by now."

Teru frowns, doesn't want to speak about this, but also doesn't want to refrain. "Then perhaps you expect too much."

"Obviously."

"Is there anything else, Takada-san?"

They're in front of the escalator that leads down to the train. The air smells like winter and the trees are on their respective ways to dead and dying. Takada's lipstick is slightly smudged at the corner and he wants to tell her - wants everything to flit gently into place and for the colors to fall within the lines; for things to make a certain sort of insistent sense. He doesn't and it doesn't. It's barely perceptible, the smudge, and nothing that common decency dictates he discuss.

"No," she says, "nothing." She turns swiftly on her heel, barely sparing him a farewell glance, and there's an uneasiness to her following movements that makes him almost want to call her back.

Not quite, though.

 

\---

 

**two days later.**

 

\---

 

"Stop!"

Wedy's voice cracks in ways she didn't know it could. She has never been in this position before. Or no, well, she has been in this position plenty of times - hands tied, held down, gun in her face; although the fact that it's her own this time is a new and raw-burning injustice. But no, capture is nothing new. Intimidation tactics from little men who think they're bigger than they are are hardly anything more than a jaunt in the park for her.

And yet -

Something is _different_ about this man.

"Stop, stop, _stop_!"

She didn't know she could scream so convincingly. Usually it's put on, usually it's so her captors will think they're getting somewhere with the torture - a couple of bumps and bruises, a few tugs on her hair - but it's all routine and she cries for effect and to get the drop on them. She is not crying now. She is not crying _yet_. She hasn't thought to.

"Hey, _hey_!"

Its not her that's saying that. She's grateful. It hurts to speak. Not that any damage has been done to her throat, but there's some roaring, roiling pathetic shame in her that makes her want to keep as quiet as possible. Let them split her down the middle, let them tear her apart. She doesn't want to die, she _doesn't want to die_ , but she does not want to be a weak thing left in the aftermath, either.

Survival is a grand idea, but not so pretty in practice.

"That's too much," the boy is saying again. He's dirtier than his photo, angrier and more tired. His clothes are more revealing. "You're not supposed to kill her. B? B, are you listening?"

"I'm not going to kill her," the man with the blade whispers jauntily. He keeps licking his wrist and Wedy can't quite register why. "Her numbers aren't up. I'd be fracturing reality. Do you think I'd do that for a pretty little petal like this?" He flips the knife between two fingers, holding onto it with terrifying ease. "The answer's no. No, no, no, jolly no."

_Beyond Birthday, age 23._ The file flits past in her head, like a film reel. _Former ward of Wammy's House Orphanage for Gifted Children, discharged at age 16 for unruly, delinquent behavior. Arrested at age 20 for three counts of murder and one count of attempted arson, with other murders traced back and connected to him during the course of his court case, which was held privately, with an officially unlisted prosecutor. Earlier this month he escaped Los Angeles State Prison, leaving no trace of his whereabouts or goals with local police officials. He has documented Antisocial Behavior Disorder, and hypothesized Schizophrenia, based on several recorded sessions referencing delusions and hallucinations which he believes to be completely real. The target should be considered extremely dangerous and should not be approached._

That had been the executive summary of the official file. The Wammy's House folder had gone into much more detail, had listed the specifics of his crimes and subsequent trial - the prosecutor of which, it seems likely, had been L - and had given a much broader, more intense view of Beyond Birthday.

She had gone to London because that's where a man matching his description had last been spotted. It had been far too easy, really, when she thinks back on it. Most personnel tracking cases are not half this neat.

She realizes now that the hard part had come later. The hard part is right now.

" _Stop_ ," she grits out again. She's not crying, _she's not crying_ , but she wants to. Her body craves the violence of some sort of release. She will not let it show, though. She will not let anything show.

The boy named Mello is still pointing the gun at her, but shakily, but with a wincing sympathy in his eyes. If it comes to it, he will not pull the trigger, she knows. She can tell. The only problem being that it will likely not come to it. That she will not manage to prompt any sort of reaction deserving of a gunshot. That she will die here, in this abandoned warehouse, with his pretty, frightened blue eyes staring at her, and a man who looks unbelievably, unexplainably like L cutting her apart.

He moves along the natural lines of her body, shallow cuts between her thighs and pelvis bone, then deeper, then _deeper_. He's centering around her sexual organs. He's threatening rape, she can tell. He doesn't have to say it. She's had it threatened before. She's beaten her attackers off before. She's not sure she could now. She thinks maybe she's lost too much blood.

Mello is wincing with her as Beyond Birthday works. "It's too much," he says, voice wavering. "Why am I letting you do this? It's way too much."

"It's necessary," Beyond says. "Do you want to know or don't you? Do you want to get anything done or would you like to waste slowly into a fragile bit of nothing in the slow, pulsing hell of day-to-day existence? Do you want to stop here? I could rip out her heart and feed it to you, but I'm not going to. I could rip out yours and feed it to her. I could rip out my own and leave it for whoever gets hungriest first. Does it matter?"

He looks at both of them like they're supposed to be agreeing. Wedy can only mouth, _stop_. Mello looks like he might throw up.

"No, it doesn't." He rolls his eyes, as if annoyed that he has to answer himself. "We all suffer for the things we want. We all bleed over stone floors but we all get up and keep on. She's going to get up. She's going to keep on. She's going to be our guide, this pretty little lady. Would you like that, Miss?"

He's looking directly at Wedy now. She can feel the blood warm down her legs. She wants to pass out. Why can't she pass out?

Beyond taps her cheek with a warm hand. "Merrie, Merrie quite contrary," he sing-songs. "Look a me. Look at me and think of all the lovely things in life. Ribbons in your hair and trying on your mother's high-heeled shoed when you were a child." Wedy stares blankly at him. "No? No, of course not. Smoke, then. Cigarette smoke in snowy air and money to buy yourself a warm room and somebody's front against your back, somebody pushing in and keeping things warm - doesn't much matter who. Somebody clean and capable who knows what they're doing and doesn't talk too much after, am I right?"

Wedy shakes her head because all of that sounds startlingly appealing. It seems very likely at this point, dazed as she is, that Beyond Birthday can read minds and is, at this very moment, digging through hers.

"Funny, I know a man who fits that exact description. He fits any description, when he needs to. He's very accommodating that way."

His left hand is empty, clean, no blood slipping down the wrist, no smudges on his fingers. He cups her chin with it and she reacts instantly bucking her head forward, trying to knock him away. More for the sentiment it communicates than any hope she has of hurting him. Normally she'd kick in this situation, but he's taken off her sharp-heeled boots and tied her ankles to the wall, leaving her to drape there like some sort of inexpertly made doll.

Blonde hair and blue eyes, like all the dream girls. And blood on her thighs. That's another sort of dream.

"So, I'll ask again, pretty lady," Beyond continues. "Where is he?"

"I told you," she spits, not least of which because she can't seem to control her saliva, " I don't _know_! Now are you cocksuckers going to kill me or just write poetry?"

"We're not going to kill you," Mello tells her, almost defensively. "Please, just tell him what he wants to know? Then we can just… just, _please_."

He's begging her. He's got wide eyes. Same color as hers. He's just as much of a dream girl as she is, and though a little worse for wear, not half so bad off as she's doing right now. There's something kind in him - stern still, like his predecessor - but a well of apparent emotion that seems to be swelling in him. Either that, or he's a better liar than anyone his age has ever had the misfortune to be.

His fingers twitch like he wants to wipe her face a bit - dirt, blood, spit, whatever it is there - but he stills. He's good cop. Beyond is bad cop. She, Wedy supposes, must be the criminal on trial.

"I don't," Wedy says, with a ravaging intensity that she summons from god knows where, voice cracking a bit in the words, " _know_."

The boy blinks at her, brow furrowed, almost as if he's about to nod, as if he's about to believe her - not that it matters, not that he has any particular control in this situation. But then Beyond is blocking her view, back in her face, filling the whites of her eyes. Sometimes he doesn't look at all like L. Other times, they might as well be the same person.

He drags the knife down her stomach, cutting lightly, and then -

_"Lovely Miss Merrie, you are a liar."_

And then it hurts.

 

\---

 

**two days earlier.**

 

\---

 

She left him with 200 pounds and a small smile and the words, "If you can keep up, you can come - but I'm not _taking_ you anywhere."

Matt had stared after the woman in black who'd walked off in a cloud of cigarette smoke and called, " What am I supposed to do with this?" with a frown in his voice. This isn't what he'd wanted. He'd just wanted Mello.

She'd twirled on her heel, face blank, and shrugged. "I don't know? Call a cab? You're the one who's supposed to be a genius. Number three, right?"

With that she'd sashayed away, all smooth and dark, slipping into the rental car that had gotten her here. Sleek and black, just like everything about her. She strikes him as what a superhero would look like, only without the superhuman powers. It's just the attitude. She might as well be Cat Woman, come to Wammy's for a visit. Well, okay, Cat Woman is not a hero, but semantics, isn't it? Matt doesn't care. He doesn't care about anything. He's been making a point of it lately, the only thing is that - well, not caring about anything gets rather boring after a while.

And it's a lie, anyway, and not a very good one.

Number two. He's number two now. He hadn't corrected her.

It's the next morning that he does, in fact, take her advice. He calls a cab. London, he thinks, is as good a bet as any.

 

\---

**tbc.**

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so we're back to a bit of time-skipping, yes. my very favorite plot-device, as i'm sure everyone could tell. i'll try to update at about the same pace as this for the next few updates, because my schedule's relatively free, aside from a short trip next week. apologies for the low amount lxlight going on lately, that will pick up after next chapter, as i'm going to be narrowing in on the action as the set-up drifts into, you know, what's actually being set up.
> 
> as always, thank you very much for reading!


	18. where the wild things aren't

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for more blood, more gore, more bad writing and screwy timeline mechanics. heh heh remember when i actually planned this story out instead of just writing it willy nilly? no? yeah, me neither.
> 
> i did solemnly vow not to stretch my updates too long apart, but clearly you should never listen to anything i say. no, the truth is that i somehow ended up with a job this month, and my writing time was rather snuffed out by that. i'm also just a bit lazy and all over the place at the moment. but i'll try to work faster on the next one, deal?
> 
> okay, so here is the promised (threatened?) mello + b (+ wedy, because yes she tags along) chapter! hopefully this doesn't bore you or detract from your enjoyment of this fic that is supposed to be l x light but hahahahah i've been a bit lagging on that front lately, haven't i? anyhow, there's a bit of exploration of the supernatural element in dn this chapter (aka, b's eyes and the abilities and rules therein.) note that i have pulled a lot of this directly out of my ass, and if it's not in line with canon, i take full responsibility for the mistakes, but this fic basically requires the bending of some rules, so alas.
> 
> anyway, thank you to everyone who reviewed last time (although there was a rather marked decrease in response so i'm taking that as an indication that last chapter was not that good?)
> 
> but, as always, thank you for reading!

_"I shall be as dirty as I please: and I like to be dirty, and I will be dirty."_  
\- Emily Brontë, _Wuthering Heights_

 

\---

 

London is loud, even during midday, and as the cab brings her through Piccadilly Circus, Wedy rolls down her window to get a whiff of the salt and smoke and laughter. Everything looks dirtier in daytime and she can't decide if she likes it or not.

Her phone lights up with a text from Aiber in the middle of a traffic jam two streets from her hotel. _You coming back, then, princess?_ it says. She doesn't know whether to laugh or blow hot air in his face, and neither of those things are possible through this medium anyway.

_That's not the job,_ she taps out, pressing send with a jolt of her thumbnail.

She's standing in the open door, directing the men in uniform on what to do with her suitcases - plural, like the type of girl she is, only more of them are filled with surveillance equipment and guns than not - when she gets the reply.

_What is the job?_

She's in her room by the time she replies, cracking open her laptop deftly and typing out an quick string of code to log into every surrounding network - just to be on the safe side - and scanning the files. When she's sure she's not being watched - at least not through any computerized medium - she drafts a new email to the contact that's listed in her log only as _A_.

Then she calls him.

"I'm sending you confidential files. Are you sober?"

She can practically see his brow wrinkling comedically, like an overgrown child wearing daddy's hair product and mommy's clothes. "Reasonably," he replies. She can hear the snap and click of keys and is gratified by the assumption that he's logging in. "And not even a _hello_? I'd be hurt if I didn't already have built-in fully body armor when it comes to you."

"Not _full_ body," she says, going along with it because he'll work better if she plays better. That's just how they are. She arches and eyebrow and lets it seep into her voice and she doesn't even need to be thinking about sex to make him think about sex.

He chuckles on the other end of the line.

"Nothing's ever one hundred percent," he murmurs softly, likely parroting back some inaccurate tidbit that L had dropped some night or another, making like he's got wisdom and making Aiber eat it from the palm of his hand. "But really," he continues, "it's been weeks. Don't tell me you didn't miss me at all, because I won't believe you."

"I didn't have much time to, honestly. I was booked at a spa for two weeks and the men there all have better hands than you."

"Liar," Aiber says. "You hate places like that."

He's right, she does. No privacy.

Wedy doesn't respond, just finishes scanning the document, then presses send.

"You were visiting your mother, I'm guessing? Don't play the cold heart with me, m'lady, we both know that the California sun melts it like the iceca - _holy shit_." There's a shuffle of the phone, then the concerted sound of typing.

Wedy leans back in the stiff hotel chair and sips her gin. He's definitely not sober. She's definitely not either.

A few moments later, Aiber's back on the line, and it's clear he's gotten the file. "What does Watari have you on?"

She skips answering the question for one of her own. "Ever heard of Beyond Birthday before?"

Aiber gives a laugh but it's stunted and probably a little wide-eyed. "Yeah, just now. Escaped convict who likes carving people up like Christmas dinners? Charming guy. What's this got to do with the Kira case?"

He's playing unmoved but she can hear the unease in his voice and she knows the pictures _hurt_ him. Deeper than they do someone like her because, unlike most everyone in the business, Aiber is one of the few people she knows who _lacks_ that full body armor. He cares about things like this. Wedy, while keeping herself emotionally uninvolved, cares that he cares. It's maybe half the reason she'd called.

"Nothing, evidently," she says, "but it's related to L so I thought you'd be interested. He ever mention a Beyond Birthday to you? Probably wouldn't have, since it sounds like a codename, so maybe just B? He ever talk about the Los Angeles BB murder case? Or Watari, even, in the last few weeks?"

Aiber's quiet for a few moments. "I've never heard of any of it before now," he says softly. She can tell he's reading the file. Never was the quickest study, but he gets the job done.

Wedy huffs, though not particularly discouraged. She'd expected as much. "Then ask. I need more information than what I currently have. The file gives lots of dates and facts and absolutely no motivations. If it's to do with L then it's to do with Watari, too, and he'll know something. Don't let him play if off like he doesn't, or like he doesn't remember, because I've watched the old bastard - with all due respect - and he's got eyes like a hawk and doesn't miss a second. If he's at all involved, he'll know, and you tell him that if he wants me to put in the full effort and work to my greatest ability, he's going to need to give me full information. Got it? Aiber?"

He's been quiet for too long. Usually not a sentence goes by in their conversations without a jovial interjection making light of some facet or the of the situation. He doesn't seem very jovial at the moment.

"Well, I'll tell you one thing right now," he says, speaking with an unusually measured concentration, "this is to do with the Kira case."

Wedy frowns. "How so?"

"Look at the date of escape."

She scans the document even though she's already got it memorized, just to double check. "November 1st. Yeah, so what?"

"So," Aiber says, a hint of the usual unruly cheer dripping back into his voice, "that's the day right after L disappeared. Do you believe in coincidence, Wedy?"

Wedy knows what he's going to say before he says it:

"L doesn't."

 

\---

 

Mello sleeps on the pull out sofa in Syd's office - or what Mello supposes must be an office, although there's nothing practical like a desk or chairs or notes, just bean bags and novelty items and photos of Syd shaking hands with a variety of grungy, tattooed patrons who must be local celebrities. He wakes up sweating in his leather, shoes still on, struggling out of a dream that instantly gets lost in the frantic reorganization of his thoughts.

B is on the floor, playing cards with himself. He doesn't look like he's slept. He's either very cautious or very committed to being like L all the way through, in every facet. Most likely both.

"Rise and shine, buttercup," he says aloud, without turning around. Mello stares at the crooked arch of his neck and needs coffee.

More than that, he needs a shower, and when Syd comes in in a bustle with caffeine in cupfuls and even a bag of bagels - thoughtful of him, or maybe just B's orders, although he doesn't eat any - he says he's organized it that Mello can use the shower and bathroom of the Pakistani family that lives on the floor above the shop.

He goes because he can no longer refuse, the dirt having seeped in thoroughly by now, and feels slightly better about having a loud, busy household of polite, if uncomfortable, warm-blooded humans between his naked body and Beyond Birthday. The comfort is lessened a bit, however, by watching Beyond kneel down to talk charmingly to the pair of twin girls with braids in their hair who answer the door, before their mother pulls them away with a thinly-veiled excuse that amounts, more than anything, to _instinctual fear_.

Smart lady.

Mello washes and closes his eyes and wishes, in some ways, that he were somewhere else, but in others - small, scheming, incomprehensible ones - there is something exhilarating about living the way he is. With a criminal, in a den of thieves, with the world just a touch away. Fake passports, fake names, fake leather, and a very real possibility of sudden death at any moment.

He'd rather be by himself than not, but - personal preference and affection aside - there is probably no one he is more suited to be working with on this than Beyond Birthday, terrifying as that is to realize.

B calls it destiny. Mello calls that stupidity, but can think of no better explanation than the violent, senseless whirring of the world, and - and it had felt senseless at the time, under Watson, then lying on the floor, a heart on his chest - but under the hot spray of the cramped shower with the sounds of sizzling breakfast echoing through the crack under the door, there seems to be an odd sort of intelligence to his situation. It's not _good_ exactly, but it could be multitudes worse.

He could be raped and dead.

He towels off and changes into some spare clothes that Syd had lent him while his own wash. B had said they'd buy more, but he hasn't made good on that particular promise, which makes it fall rather in line with all the others. At this point in time, though, fashion isn't Mello's primary concern, and Syd's a small enough man that his jeans fit alright with a belt.

When Mello comes downstairs, B is still sorting through his cards with a trick of a smile on his face, and Syd's wrapped up in a solid looking leather coat and lacing his boots.

"Where are you going?" Mello asks, having found his voice a bit more by now, if only when it comes to necessary information.

"Need to talk to a contact," Syd says, finishing up on one foot and switching to the other. "They don't make it seem like it in the movies, but this sort of thing's hard work - you need the right material, the right printer, serial numbers and that shiny sort of bit that goes over the top - you know what I mean? There's a technical name, but I don't remember it."

"The Hanged Man," Beyond announces loudly from his place on the floor, holding up one of his cards.

"No, that's not it," Syd says, with a dismissive sort of humor. "Anyway, I used to have it all on hand back when I was in the business, but since the bogeyman and I last swapped stories, I've cleaned up my act quiet a bit." He shoots a nervous glance at B, like he expects him to take offense. "Anything for a friend, though," he says, and it's obvious from his self-deprecating smile he doesn't mean it and doesn't intend for it to be believed.

"The Fool," is all B says, holding up another card.

Syd's eyebrows go up and he looks slightly offended, but turns back to Mello without remark. "So anyhow, I need to get back in contact with a few old suppliers - shouldn't take more than a day, two tops - and both of you will be on your merry way soon enough. Right?" he asks B.

"The Tower."

"Right," Syd nods, unflinching. I'll just be going now. Expect me back in a few hours. Put in a call if you want me to grab lunch."

Once he's out the door, B drops his cards uncaringly, like a child who's grown tired of one toy and plans to move onto another. He looks up at Mello with a clever twitch of a glint of his eye. "Well Lucy," he says jauntily, "it seems I have some 'splaining to do."

 

\---

 

"Wait, so you _see_ people's names? What, like you have some sort of telepathic vision and it just comes to you?" Mello asks, struggling to keep up through the rowdy noonday streets. Beyond is marching forward with what may be resolute purpose or else just the desire for some exercise and a lungful of fresh - if smoke-filled - autumn air. It's hard to tell.

"No, no, mister," he says, glancing briefly over his shoulder to make sure Mello's there. "I mean I literally _see_ them, floating above people's heads in little red letters." He points at a man across the street. "Roger Sullivan." Then a woman a little farther a long. "Esme Cavanaugh." Another woman. He squints "Kali Khan, I believe. K-H-A-N, deriving from Central India, probably, but I can't be sure."

Mello stops, stumbling a bit over the sidewalk and knocking shoulders with a man who only spits over his shoulder and moves on. "You could literally be making all of that up on the spot. Just saying things doesn't prove anything."

B doesn't look back. "Why would I be trying to prove something, darling? It's all right here, in front of my eyes, and those are the ones that matter. Now keep up, Mihael, we don't want you to be a lost boy again, do we?"

Mello thinks that they don't want anything, not jointly - except L, maybe, but in very different ways and for very different reasons. Mello's still not sure of B's ways and reasons, really, but he doesn't think he needs to be.

What Mello wants is the truth. He catches up, though grudgingly, and points to the first man he sees approaching, who wears a poorly tailored suit and limps when he walks. It's a fairly easy test.

"His name?" he asks.

"Leroy McDavis," B says, squinting slightly, but it rolls off the tongue with an ease that seems almost practiced. Maybe he's got names stored up in that head of his for times just such as this. He's a planner at heart and maybe this is just another plan, executed with ease for his own amusement.

On the other hand, Mello raises his voice slightly as the man passes them and calls, "Leroy!"

The reaction is instant. The man looks straight at him with small, watery blue eyes and a tight mouth and says, before Mello - running off the fumes of shock and unpreparedness - has time to get away, "Are you addressing me?"

His accent is posh and refined and Mello barely stops to wonder, but does, how the sort of man who speaks like that became the sort of man that limps around this part of town.

He should say no, he thinks, and move on and be done with it because this is one of those awful social situations that he takes pains to avoid, with the eyes on him and time slowing down and speeding up in uneven measures as he tries to come up with just what the hell to say.

"Uh," he stumbles out after a moment, as B claps him on the back, "yes. Sorry." He tries not to look at his shoes but he does anyway.

Leroy McDavis stares at him. "No one's called me that in years."

"Yeah, sorry," Mello says again, trying to draw himself away. Beyond's fingers are digging into the bones of his shoulder. They don't hurt, but it's also not a particularly nice feeling. "I didn't mean - "

In the next moment, before he can properly conceptualize it, Leroy McDavis is rushing at him, grabbing at his collar and slamming him into the nearest brick facade with a wide-eyed, unhinged look flashing across his face. "Who sent you?" he shouts, but it's muffled and uneven so as to be almost inaudible in the din of the streets. "It was them, wasn't it? Wasn't it?"

"What?" Mello gasps, as he's shaken up, head banging against the wall jarringly, blurring his vision. "I don't - get off me!"

People are starting to look now, the crowd shuffling its attention staggeringly over to the commotion, and it might get strange or ugly or else just very embarrassing - and then B steps in. He seems to do that for Mello a lot.

"Now, now, Leroy," he says cheerily, but with a dangerous tilt to his grin that should be audible even to those unused to him, "don't be so paranoid. You've got nothing to worry about. Your end date is a long way off. Believe me, I know, because if it wasn't I would rip out your small intestine and strangle you with it right here on the street."

He's there quite suddenly, ducking his head into the fray with a queer little shrug of his shoulders and an _oopsie daisy_ expression twitching across his face. He arches back into the wall beside Mello, throwing an arm up in a casual gesture that leans almost protective at certain angles.

Mello can feel the man's grip on Syd's borrowed shirt loosening up already, in a quivering, unsure way. He looks almost apologetic, shaking his head. "I can't let them find me," he says, waveringly.

"I don't want them to, either," B agrees, conspiratorially, as if he knows exactly what he's talking about and has been thinking sedately on it for a good long while.

Leroy's hands drops from Mello clothes completely. "What should I do?" he asks, in a small voice.

Beyond's eyes twinkle. "Run," he says. And Leroy McDavis does.

Mello's breath dips a little bit and he slumps back against the wall, uneasy, but also relieved and - grateful, maybe? He has no idea how he would have handled that on his own. Of course, left to his own devices, he wouldn't _be_ in this situation in the first place.

Rape and dead, the throbbing reality in the back of his head tells him, and then he's a little more grateful. Or annoyed. It's hard to tell, when it comes down to it.

"Who's after him?" he asks, because admitting the strangeness and unlikely coincidence of the situation feels like too much work and too much discussion.

"No idea." Beyond shrugs with a chipper jolt of his shoulders, pushing off the wall to walk on through the crowd. He doesn't glance back, as if he expects Mello to chase him down frantically and demand answers. Or maybe he doesn't expect that, maybe Mello expects that. Maybe he should, but -

Okay, Beyond Birthday can see names. He believes it. He believes him. It's impossible, given the established laws of reality and evidence available to the general scientific community - and the less general, given that Wammy's curriculum includes exploration of many kinds of alternative and fringe sciences - but Mello believes it anyway. Reasonably, he doesn't think he should. His mind should rebel and he should have many more questions and objections but it just - comes easy. It seems almost likely that Beyond Birthday has some sort of supernatural power. Almost self-evident.

Of course he's not the same as the rest of humanity. He can pass for such if he puts effort in, but he is not. He does not work in the same ways. Mello's not sure if he finds it terrifying or comforting or if he even finds it anything at all. It just is. It barely changes a thing.

He catches up, pushing through the increasing throngs of people to find his way back to Beyond's side, though he falls short every other step and ends up trailing him more than anything. He almost expects B to lean back and pull him along, like he'd done the day before. Fortunately, there's none of that. B seems distracted even, as if he's got his eye on something up ahead and can't be bothered to attend fully to Mello at the same time.

Normally Mello wouldn't mind that - would find it a blessing, even - but this is not really the ideal time.

"What are you looking for?" he mumbles, following B around a bend.

"Doesn't matter," B breaths out, "it's gone now. I lost the scent, you know? Dear old Leroy did a number on my nose and I got a bit distracted. No matter. The fox will be home soon." He slows back down to a more reasonable pace, adjusting his collar and fading his looks back into those of the typical citizen of the great city of London, becoming quite suddenly mundane, someone your eyes would skip over in a crowd.

"Can you speak plain English for once please?" Mello says, eyes rolling.

B rolls his back, a perfect mirror, as if Mello's inability to follow his mad ramblings is a character flaw that needs correcting. "We were following Syd, but I lost him. That plain enough, Johnny-boy?"

Mello frowns. "What for?"

"Because he's slippery, like a fresh fish at morning market - you know the ones, with the eyes still in that look at you all goggly, all _I know you are going to take home and eat me, Sir or Madam_ \- and I can't let him swim away."

"I thought he was a fox," Mello says dully.

"You're cute," B replies, except then he tilts his eyes over his shoulder and hitches his mouth and it's a little bit horrifying how Mello's body reacts with visceral terror. He can feel the hair on his arms standing up. He didn't know that happened in real life. He'd thought it was a figure of speech, something that only happens in books.

All of this is something that only happens in books.

Mello ignores the words, point at a random woman in the crowd. "What's her name?"

"Cassandra Whaley," Beyond says, with nothing but a squint and very short pause. "And she's not got long now, poor dear."

Mello doesn't understand the latter part of the sentence, so his mind filters it out as the usual nonsense - or good sense, wrapped up in riddles and theatrical strangeness - and calls the woman's name into the crowd. It takes a few tries, but then her head jerks up and she glances around confusedly, though lacking the wild fear of Leroy McDavis. Mello and B disappear into the busy streets without letting her spot them, and Mello continues tests of this nature, with Beyond's cue of a name, until he is past satisfied with the reality of B's ability. Even after, he keeps doing it, mostly just for fun.

They only stop when the crowd thickens to almost unreasonable degrees, all seemingly congregating around the same building, with their heads tilted up.

"Shouldn't someone call the police?" asks a disembodied voice that could belong to any of the amassed midday Londoners.

"Hold on, I'm playing _Bejelwed_ ," someone replies, tapping away at their phone.

Mello looks up at the building. For a moment he thinks it's performance art, or something of the like - his brain is wired for that assumption, perhaps - but it sets in quite easily when he registers the fear in the woman's face. Girl. Woman. She might be his age, might be up to her early twenties - it's hard to tell. She is afraid, though, and that is not. She's standing on the window-ledge with shaky legs, arms gripping the bricks on either side of her with trembling resolve, and evidently building up to throwing herself down.

Mello frowns. Someone really should call the police. Someone should do something. Not him, but - someone.

Beyond just tilts his had to the side, looking bored. "I like her ankles," he says.

She's barefoot, in what looks like an evening dress, as if she'd dolled herself up or the occasion. Her make-up is smudged, though, running down her face in wet grey lines.

Mello glares at B, though not heatedly. "That's all you get from this?" he asks, not half so disgusted as he simply feels as if he should be. It's not been that long. He should not be used to this.

"Oh, don't worry your pretty little head about it, it's not like she's actually going to die. Not for a a while now, anyway." He pulls up the collar on his jacket, guarding against the thin chill of wind that breathes down the street, sending the rest of them huddling in on themselves in reaction, rather than preparation.

Someone breathes smoke in Mello's face and he coughs it away, then says, "Optimistic way to look at it."

"I'm just looking at what's right before my eyes, sugar, and," - he squints and Mello mirrors him without really meaning to, trying to see whatever it is B sees, as if he even could, "her numbers give a full 4 years before her expiration date. They could change anytime between then and now, of course - all I know is she's not going to die today."

"Numbers," Mello repeats back to him.

Beyond pushes back out of the crowd, dropping a few pounds on a stall and picking up a steaming drink that he hands over to Mello in one smooth, easy movement, barely glancing at the man who takes his money. "I can see death dates, too. Did I not mention that?"

Mello stares blankly, the warm cup scalding his hand a bit. "No."

"Oh," B says, walking on, and it's clear that he did not forget anything at all. He's playing. Fucker. "Drink your cocoa, buttercup. It'll get cold."

Mello doesn't follow. "Prove it."

B glances over his shoulder, cackling. "No, no, no, that's not how it works. You ask and I answer, but that's all. This is variety hour in London and I'm giving you a show because I think it will do more good than harm - assuming that you think harm is good and good is harm - but I don't jump when you tell me how high and your pretty little child brain isn't the thing I'm out to impress." When Mello still doesn't follow, he turns around squarely and walks back. "You're an accessory, Mihael, not the main course."

Mello stares stolidly at him. "That's a very mixed metaphor," he says.

"Don't do it!" someone yells up at the girl on the window ledge. There are sirens in the distance.

"I have to," she yells back, voice shaking. "I have to!" Her face is a mess, eyes a wet crinkle and nose running, and she is not beautiful now and doesn't look as if she particularly would be without the despair coloring her looks. "I asked for a sign today! I asked for a sign not to do it and it didn't - nothing happened. I can't - _I have to_."

"Does she realize it's barely noon?" someone strolling past asks their companion with guilty amusement. Mello glares after them, then turns back to the woman.

"What's her name?" he asks B.

It's a few empty seconds before he turns a rolling eye back, repeating the question - then stopping halfway through. B isn't there anymore. Mello spins around, panicking for half a moment before he watches the tail end of Watson's coat disappear into the apartment building. He swears, leaving his hot chocolate untouched on the curb, and following. The sirens are coming closer.

The building only has two floors, so it's easy to extrapolate as to which one the girl is on. If he really put his mind to it, Mello could probably even calculate which room she's in - but he doesn't need to. Beyond's tall, uneven figure marks the doorway as he stands black against the off-white of the hallway. Mello's steps slow as they approach.

"Elizabeth Cale," B is saying as he walks into the room. From the open window, the woman's hair whips around in a thin arch. She looks afraid at first, then accusatory.

"How did you get in?" she says, hurriedly, clutching the bricks outside. Her dress looks thin. She's probably freezing cold.

"Ellie, right?" Beyond asks, ignoring her question.

She looks less afraid as the moments pass. "Beth. No one's called me Ellie since I was a child."

"Ellie Cale," B continues, unassuaged, "do you like hot chocolate?"

Mello frowns as he watches B produce another styrofoam cup from fuck knows where, and with an uncanny ease that creeps up his skin. Like a magician, with his sleight of hand and his distracting smile and all the glitz and the glamour of the moment.

"I don't, " - she starts, tripping over her words; the sirens are right below the window now. "I'm trying to kill myself just now. Hot chocolate isn't going to fix it."

"You wanted a sign," Beyond tells her, waving the cup at her as if to tempt her off the ledge, like leading a dog around. There's no way this is going to work.

"You're just a man," Elizabeth Cale counters.

"Am I?"

There is no possible way this is going to work, but Mello likes being in the warmth of the building, so he just stands in the hall, still and tall and tired in his way.

Beyond sets down the cup, taking a few steady steps forward and holding out his hand. "Come here, Ellie Cale, and I will tell you something very secret. I will tell you the secret to existence and you will breathe very easily after it."

"I can't," Ellie Cale says, and she might be crying again. "I can't."

"Ellie, my dear, my darling - it's not that hard." He holds his hand out even farther. And Elizabeth Cale, she frowns and she looks at the ground and she hears the crowd and then looks Beyond Birthday in face - the face that Mello can't see just now and isn't sure that he wants to. It is a lying face.

And Elizabeth Cale, she takes the offered hand and lets B pull her into the room, falling against him like a fragile thing on fragile legs. He lines his lips up with her ear and glances slightly over his shoulder, shooting Mello a smirk, and whispers something very slowly. Ellie's eyes go wide.

He lets her go, stepping back, and in the next moment - she slaps him.

And then the cops storm the hall, pushing in and around Mello, and everything gets very loud and Elizabeth Cale's crying is the last thing that Mello hears as Beyond grabs him around the wrist and pulls him down the hall to the emergency fire-escape.

"What did you say to her?" Mello asks, once they're outside on the street.

B shrugs, looking slightly smug, and turns on his heel. "Something secret."

 

\---

 

While Aiber is slow-going with getting any information out of Watari, Wedy works quickly, reestablishing links with her old contacts in London from the burglary circuit, as well as putting in a word for herself with the local information brokers. If Beyond Birthday is still in the city - or ever was - she will know by tonight, or tomorrow at the latest. The last source she goes to, as it's guaranteed to be the most useless, is the police, putting in a call to request any information they have on the sightings. They're very tight-lipped at first, until she flashes her L-associated credentials around, and then it's just a matter of them sorting out their shit well enough to have anything to report.

It takes longer than it might. L's name gives policemen shaky hands, and makes detectives swear under their breath, either in excitement or annoyance or a keen mix of both. Usually she enjoys eliciting the reactions, but now it's an inconvenience more than anything else.

She resolves to go directly to the central London station, to harass them or maybe to just stand around looking bored and disapproving, and puts on something form-fitting enough to be considered classless but expensive enough for that not to matter. She does not look the part of an investigator and she enjoys that far more than she would blending in. That's why L goes for the jeans, doesn't he? Just for the shock and confusion, just to throw them all off.

That, or he just finds them comfortable. No matter. This is how she is comfortable.

The secretary is a small Welshman who trips over most of his words and cannot seem to find any of his files, despite them being organized with inhuman care in the cabinet beside him.

"It's just," he says, small and withering under the metallic glare of her sunglasses, "these things usually take a day or two to process and I don't know if I can - "

"This is a special circumstance. Didn't they tell you?" She plants her hand on one hip, empty briefcase clutched in the other, and rolls her eyes. He can't see them, of course, but the gesture is surely apparent in her manner.

"They don't tell me much, Ma'am," he says, cycling through papers that don't seem to have any particular use or import other than to busy his hands. Wedy's about to give him until the count of however long it takes her to slip into the bathroom and touch up her lipstick, when he looks up, eyes going wide at something past just past her shoulder. "Oh, no, no, not today."

Wedy barely has time to glance around before a short, square, dirty man in a thin cap and scuffed up leather jacket barges past her, banging down on the front desk like this is some sort of low rent hotel and he is demanding room service.

"Excuse me," she says, with crinkling distaste, "but whatever happened to lining up in a calm, orderly fashion?"

The man ignores her. "Edmund," he says, uneven desperation in his voice. "Edmund, don't look at me like that! I know what you're thinking, but it's different this time."

Edmund, behind the desk, quakes uncomfortably, neat fingernails tapping across the desk. "Sir, you need to go. If the inspector sees you around here again, not only will he have me doing overtime in the lower levels for the next two weeks - cold case filing, and that rot - but you'll get brought up on drunk and disorderly again. If I see you around, I'm supposed to send you out." He turns to Wedy. "I'm sorry, Ma'am, if you'll just - "

"No, no, you don't understand, I'm sober, been dry for almost a month now, which is why you haven't been seeing me around lately, but I'm telling you that this is the real thing. No more boy who cried wolf for me, no, I have an _actual_ crime to report, with an actual perpetrator."

Edmund the secretary rolls his nervous eyes. "Oh, and what is it this time? Evil spirits invading your tattoo shop? The family upstairs feeding poison into your water? Come on, out with you. Sleep it off and stay away from the station."

Wedy frowns, the exchange imprinting itself curiously into her mind. She's trained herself to pick up every single detail of her surroundings for years now, but it's quite rare that there's ever anything of interest that's unrelated to the case at hand.

"No, Edmund, sport, listen to me. It's nothing supernatural, none of the usual rot, it's just a man this time, but - he's not - he's not just a man."

" _Syd_ ," the secretary snaps, with unconventional familiarity. "Go home."

"He's back. Do you hear me? The man from three years ago. The man that took Sadie away. B is back and he's _at my shop_. I need to speak with Inspector Rylie. I need someone with a firearm and a lot of bullets to come back with me, alright? Please, Edmund - _please_."

Edmund is shaking his head, though with a tremble to his lip that is unbefitting of any stern denial, but Wedy finds herself smiling very, very wide. This is not possible. No, this is possible, but very, very unlikely.

She turns to the man called Syd and says, in her smoothest, most commanding operative voice, "You wouldn't happen to be talking about Beyond Birthday, would you?"

 

\---

 

"So, he storms in, middle of the morning when I'm trying to get done some sketches - you know how it is, slow days in this kind of weather - "

"She doesn't know how it is, Syd, she's a detective, not a fucking tattoo artist." Edmund winces after he speaking, looking immediately apologetic. "Excuse my language, Ma'am," he tells Wedy, who just lifts her eyebrows behind her sunglasses - still on, even in the dim of the bar - and sips her gin and tonic.

She's buying them a beer, because that's the easiest and most effective way to get information out of anyone, she's found. Syd had abstained, swearing by his current sobriety as the best thing to happen to him in years. Little secretary Edmund, however, who's now off for the day, had taken her up on the offer on account of, as he'd put it, _needing a stiff drink to get through any conversation with Syd_.

They're second cousins, apparently. Small world. Large coincidence. Strange happenings. The usual for most of L's cases, really. She still can't tell if this is even one of L's cases. Aiber hasn't gotten back with anything of value, had just said that Watari hadn't given an inch.

"Go on," she says to Syd.

Before he can do as much, Edmund cuts in again, getting more boisterous with every sip. "Listen, listen," he says, and he's only on his second beer. It might be amusing if it wasn't so damn inconvenient. "Ma'am, Syd is a good man and reformed from any illicit practices that he may have previously engaged in, but he's not right in the head. We get him down in the station at least every few weeks, demanding that someone come down to his tattoo shop and chase out the ghosts or some sort of similar rot. If he's saying he's got some serial killer bunking up with him, it's likely he saw him on the TV and concocted some wild tale about it."

"Eddie, you're coloring the situation all wrong. I was _drunk_ those times, stone-cold pissed to the eyeballs, and, that aside - "

"Have you ever found any?" Wedy interrupts.

Edmund frowns over the lip of his glass. "Any what?"

She quirks a smile. "Ghosts."

Syd laughs, but it's a nervous chuckle, and his fingers play against the tabletop and she can tell he is antsy. He is afraid. If this all pans out and Beyond Birthday actually is at his shop, he more than likely has reason to be.

Edmund just rolls his eyes, taking a long sip. "We've never found a thing. And don't think we haven't had to send people down every so often, because if someone calls for the police, it's our civic duty to go out, even if their reports err on the side of ridiculous. There was never a thing out of place, except for empty bottles lining the floors and sometimes a bit of sick on the carpet."

"But I'm not drunk now," Syd snaps, stubby nails digging into the counter, "and B is not a ghost or - or - he's _real_ , is what I'm saying, and he's dangerous. He's the man I told you about, Eddie, he's the one - he _killed_ Sadie."

Edmund closes his eyes and appears to compose himself with long breaths. "Sadie died in an accident, Syd. We've been over this."

"He did it. I swear, I - "

"Look," Wedy puts in - not one to be insensitive, but neither one to be particularly sensitive either, and she has a job to do, "I'm sure this Sadie was a lovely girl, but I don't care what Beyond Birthday did or didn't do years ago. I don't even care what he's doing now. I just need to know _where_ he is." She'd considered just looking up Syd's tattoo shop on google maps, as that would take less trouble, but it's less sure of working and, anyway, she wants to keep Syd with her. In case things turn out to be a bust, as Edmund's been saying, she wants someone to give a stern glare and a lecture to.

"Oh, he's there," Syd says, as Edmund rolls his eyes and orders another beer, "and I'll take you, just - haven't you got a team or something like that? You know, beefy guys in bulletproof vests and AK-47s?"

Wedy bites her lip, all dumb blonde and gropes around in her pockets for a moment, as if looking for something. Then she shrugs, her expression growing flat, and says, "Must have left it in my other pants. Can we go now?"

Syd blinks at her, then nods, straightening up. Before he pulls his jacket closed, she can see the edges of cartoon animals peeking up across his skin. From the stool where he's still slumping, Edmund calls after them as they leave, "You're not going to find anything," and then, after a moment, "I'll have those reports for you tomorrow, Ma'am."

Wedy doesn't look back.

 

\---

 

They go back to the tattoo shop because there's nowhere else in particular to go. The streets are crowding up and if Syd was ever within tracking distance, he isn't now - B sniffs around the whole area, making sure of as much. The woman from upstairs brings down tike masala for lunch, nodding dismissively at Mello's thanks and checking him several times for fever, before heading back upstairs with barely a glance at B.

Then they're simply left with food, and each other. Most days, in Mello's eyes, one would be vastly preferable to the other, and he would use the meal as an excuse to duck down into himself and avoid conversation. Right now, however, he can't quite keep his interest anywhere but on B, and he frowns fixedly across the busted ottoman at which he's eating, not quite sure what to ask or how to ask it.

After several minutes of this, B takes enough notice to jab his fork at him playfully - or murderously, it's hard to tell - and say, "What is it, Mihael?"

Mello chews his food, as if he needs time the think, but the truth of it is that the thought has been forming for the last several minutes, and when the question comes out, it's with almost eloquent ease. "I'm honestly still trying to figure out why you did that," he says, swallowing. "I know I'm supposed to be number two and all, but - "

"You've not got a number any longer, my love. You're a zero, out here with the rest of the world." Beyond draws a big '0' in the air between them, as if tracing a pattern that's already there.

Mello ignores the interruption. "If I didn't know far better, I'd say that was you trying to play the hero."

Mello had been there, and he'd watched the extended hand, listened to B's calming words, and - although he hadn't had a view of his face - he'd seen the reflection of whatever false kindness has been there mirrored back in the eyes of the woman. The woman who had taken B's hand. She hadn't jumped. She'd been given a sign.

Beyond Birthday did a good thing. Mello can't quite make sense of it, but it had happened.

B laughs, but it's less uncaring than usual, and there's a balled-up twitchiness to the sound. He shakes his head in what must be an attempt at lackadaisical. "I'm sure you've realized by now that's just not my role."

"Then why - "

"You asked me to prove myself."

Beyond scoops up some rice and shoves it into his mouth, eating with a sloppiness that is - no surprise - reminiscent of L. Mello rolls his eyes. It's annoying, more than anything, when he takes on L's habits, pulling them over like a disguise and hiding any self-contained emotions going on underneath the surface.

"That didn't prove anything," Mello says, scoffingly, somehow conjuring volume that his voice has lacked for weeks, save for the brief interludes of screaming. "I'm not actually sure I even believe you can see death dates. Or names. You're mad. You're a crazy person. I shouldn't believe anything you say."

"And yet you do," B counters.

He does, doesn't he? If not in an intellectual sense, than at least in his gut. His mind doubts even the possibility, but the rest of him has already accepted it as the reality. Beyond has always been something strange, something _else_. Separate. The common laws of the universe do not apply to him. Sure. Alright. It makes more sense in his case than anyone else's.

But that's not what really matters right now. "Why did you save her?" he asks, solidly, with more confidence than anyone should reasonably have around a convicted, psycho, _psychic_ murderer. And yet.

"I didn't save anybody," B says, kicking off the sofa and into a stilted pace. He rubs his large white hands together with something that may be agitation and may just be cleanliness.

"I was there," Mello starts -

And then B is in front of him, directly, leaning in and arching his eyebrows with an unseemliness that Mello is still not quite used to. The closeness shivers down his spine as B speaks.

" _I didn't save anybody,_ " he repeats. "Just like when I cut open your gang friends, I didn't kill anybody. They were always going to die on that day, at that time. It was set. It was _predestined_ , if you like that word. I was just the conduit. I held the knife and I used the rib spreader but I didn't kill them. The world did. Just like the world saved miss Ellie Cale."

Mello scoffs. That doesn't even makes sense. Does that make sense? He doesn't think that makes sense.

"Well, if it was all going to happen anyway, then why did you do it? Any of it?"

Beyond looks oddly accused by the question, pushing back out of Mello's space and falling into a lazy sprawl on the sofa, laughing unappealingly.

"Because I can. Because that's all I can do. If it's all set out already, then why even exist, right? Why not take a cue from dear Beth and throw ourselves out of windows? You know why. Why do you do anything? Why do you wake up in the morning and finger the tangles out of your hair and put on your shoes and keep going, Mihael? Because that's what there's room for. If the scene is already set, then you can bet your tight, underaged ass that I'm going to snag myself a role. I'm going to play and I'm going to play hard. I will be the killer or the savior, or both at once, if that's what the world calls for. The world is always calling. I'm just the only one who can hear it."

He speaks with barely a breath, jolting from thin whisper to thin whisper without a pause in between. He's smiling but he doesn't look amused. Mello doesn't know how to respond to any of that, so he just latches onto the thing that strikes him most.

"So it was heroics, then." B had used the word _savior_ after all.

"You're assigning too much romanticism," B scoffs, waving a dismissive hand, although without so much excited urgency now. "I'm not L, babydoll, although I make a good show of it. I don't pretend to save anyone. If I'm honest, I was sort of hoping I could get her to jump." He shrugs. "Hence the slap. I didn't know how soon the cops would show, and with every close call there's always that moment. That possibility of changing fate."

"I thought it was already set in stone," Mello says.

"Dates change. Dates change all the time. I see them change. I see people change their own, depending on what they have for lunch that day, and change other people's. It's all cogs and gears and A's to B's to C's. But they don't change for me. I could kill you now, where you stand, but your numbers - the ones that have you dying a fair way off - wouldn't switch. Whereas, if Syd came home and suddenly decided, against all design and reason, to put a bullet in your brain, somewhere before your last breath of life, I would see the switch, see the numbers change to those that - when combined correctly - would come to the solution of _that exact moment_. That's how it works. But it's different for me. Nothing changes for me." He slumps lower in his seat, the agitation seeming to have passed. "I just wondered, if I caused a death indirectly, whether it would have the same result, but since the London police department is so punctual, we won't ever know. At least not using Miss Cale.

He picks up his plate, apparently ravenous again, because he eats very quickly and even nabs a few pieces of chicken from Mello's dish.

With a full mouth, he tells him, "So as you can see, no heroics."

"She slapped you, though," Mello points out. "She didn't jump. So either you read the situation wrong, or else your heart wasn't in it."

And that's a rather innocuous comment, or would be directed at anyone else, but if Mello's learned anything particularly in his time with B, it's that he has a talent for _reading_ things. People, situations, emotions - he seems to know what exactly to say at exactly the right time to make things happen and people react the way he wants them to. Mello's fairly certain that if he has truly wanted Elizabeth Cale to jump out of her window, she would have.

"It was an issue of timing," B says, flicking his wrist lazily. "Don't get mushy on me."

"No you're right," Mello agrees, if not with the words than with the sentiment behind them. "You're not a good person. You do not have good intentions. But you did a good thing. Who knows if she'd have jumped before the cops got there, if you hand't gone up." He shrugs.

" _I_ know," B tells him, with an uneven bark of laughter. "That's the point. She was never going to die today."

"Maybe. But maybe the reason that she was never going to die today was because you were always going to go up to talk to her."

"It doesn't work like that. I told you. The universe doesn't factor me in."

Mello thinks it's a bit presumptuous of B to be the spokesperson for what the universe does and doesn't do - but then an aggrandized sense of important is the very least of Beyond's character flaws. Accepting the idea that the universe does much of anything at all, except exist, dully and without meaning, is a bit harder for Mello to comprehend.

So he just rolls his eyes and goes with disparaging. "Why not? What makes you so special?"

"I'm not _so_. Want to hear something very strange and very lovely? When Kira kills, the universe doesn't for factor that in, either. The criminals that drop from heart attacks? Their dates don't change. They just die. As if I had killed them." His posture shifts in a twitchy line, going from slumped over to leaned in conspiratorially. "For a while there I thought maybe I was killing them subliminally with my mind. Don't laugh, Mihael, or I'll rip out your esophagus."

Mello doesn't laugh, thought it's not out of fear. "No, you won't."

"Smart boy," B says.

"So, is that why you want to go to Tokyo?" Mello asks, even though he already more or less knows the answer. "To find out about Kira?"

B gives a lilting little chuckle. "Heavens, no," he says, but then sobers quickly. "I mean, I figure I might have to, since his business is all mixed up in ours, but I'm going to Tokyo for the same reason you are. For the same man."

Of course, that's it, isn't it? That's the point of connection, the common interest. L's the only reason they're even around each other. Matt, Near, Linda, all the other kids at the orphanage, and Watari and Roger themselves - more or less everyone Mello knows, he knows through L, or because of him. The competition and the struggle and the reason that Mello is out here with a madman, trying to get a falsified passport so that he can illegally cross the Japanese border, is because of L.

He better be fucking grateful when they find him. They better find him.

"You don't want to kill him, do you?" he asks B. "L, I mean." There's a pause and not of confirmation but Mello doesn't really need as much. He knows. He can tell. "What do you want?"

B opens his mouth, tossing his palms wide as if preparing for a speech, but then he stops. He frowns, eyes rolling up to look at the ceiling, and then he shoots a mischievous glance at Mello that is either colored with annoyance or excitement or a mix of the two. He folds his hands together, brushing them as if wiping away dirt.

"That, Mihael," he says, standing up, "is a much longer story. And one we don't have time for right now, seeing as we have company."

Mello's got no idea what he's talking about - and then -

And then Beyond is wheeling around and pulling the door open in a flash of creaky movements that happen too fast for Mello to fully process them. He only knows that he ends up standing in the middle of the room with a plate of tikka masala in one hand and watching B drag Syd into the room by his shirt collar and throw him to the ground in a heap of creative British expletives. That's not excessively pleasant, but it's not unsurprising and not something that hasn't happened before - but the woman, the woman is new.

She stands at the door in what looks like business casual for dominatrixes and smiles sharply in the grey afternoon light from the small windows. She has a gun in her right hand and it's pointed directly at B's head.

"Hello, Mr. Birthday," she says. She's American and she speaks like someone who'd gone to a good university. She arches her eyebrow like someone who'd fucked her professors.

B eyes her for a moment, features on the edge of expression, and then he laughs. It's a tinkling little giggle, like metal on glass. "No one's ever called me that before," he says. "That's funny. You're very funny, Miss." He points at the gun. "That's funny, too."

"In my experience," the woman says, finger tickling the trigger, "gushing head wounds and splattered brain matter are not all that amusing."

B smirks. "We must have very different experiences."

They should run. She doesn't look like a cop, but they should run anyway. There's a gun pointed at Beyond's head and they need to get out of here. There's a gun pointed at Beyond's head and it's probably very much justified and if she pulled the trigger this woman would probably be doing very good, necessary work, but he can't die. He can't because Mello needs him. Just for a while. Just to get to Tokyo.

He steps backwards, edging towards the back window from which Syd had originally tried to make his escape, and that's probably karma or something. Mello hopes that that doesn't exist. He hopes that god isn't watching him. He hopes that someone, somewhere will forgive him for what he is doing. For what he is.

He stumbles into the doorframe, knocking his shoulder.

"Mihael," B says, without turning around, "stay. Finish your lunch."

"Hey, can I have some of that?" Syd asks from the floor, pointing at the plate. "I've barely eaten all day." He is widely ignored.

The woman's eyes twitch to Mello, although they lock quickly back on B with a casual intensity that insists that she's not letting him out of her sight. When she speaks, though, it's obviously addressed over his shoulder.

"It's you. You're the boy, the runaway." She's not asking a question and Mello's glad because he doesn't know how to answer that. How does she know? How could anyone know him? He's not reported missing. He's not in any police database. There's only one file on him in existence, and that - it belongs to Wammy's.

"Who sent you?" he asks, voice hollow and wavering. "Was it Roger? Or Watari?"

"Shhhh, Mihael," B says, "don't let your food play with you."

The woman looks between them and, after a long pause in which the only sound is Syd crawling across the floor to get to the ottoman with dinner on it, she says, "What if I told you it was L?"

"I," he starts, then stops. Mello doesn't know what.

"Oh, Miss Kenwood," B guffaws, hand to his heart like some sort of scandalized debutante, "you lying little little dandelion, you. God frowns upon the fraudulent the most, did you know? Or Dante does, anyway, and that's just as well. God says what we say he says. God is what we say he is." His conversation has gone off the deep end again, but Mello's gotten to the point where he can tell that most of it is an act. The spiraling thought processes are there, maybe, but - like any functional person - Beyond Birthday is capable of, if he so chooses, filtering himself enough to sound like any Tom, Dick or Harry.

The woman looks shocked, and maybe not proportionately so, because what B's saying now isn't half so crazy as most of his discourse. But then she snaps, "My name is Wedy," and he understands. No one has called him Mello in days now, but _Mihael_ is still a surprise every time he hears it.

B laughs again. "Your pants are on fire, Merrie. You're burning up down there."

"I was sent to kill you," she says loudly, trigger-finger held firm.

"No, you weren't," B counters with barely a wince. "Stop with all the tall tales. You were sent to capture me, maybe. Yes, I'll buy that. But not death. They don't want me dead. Not Q and not R and not L. Especially not L. If you ever head him talk about me, you wouldn't quite believe it." B grins and it's with a peculiar fondness that tugs on Mello's insides. "He gets this snide little book-learning voice and uses all these fancy words and sometimes knocks me out of windows, but he wouldn't be able to live if I was dead. And I know he's still living."

Merrie, Wedy - whatever her name is - clicks her tongue. "He's never mentioned you."

"Oh, he doesn't ever by name. He likes our stories, though. I make a very good antagonist to his tragic hero. Do you like Pakistani food?" He gestures to where Syd's sitting, the subject change stark but not so odd to Mello's ears anymore. "Come in, sit down, have a bite. I have to rip out darling Syd's darling intestines and feed them to the birds, anyway, so if you wouldn't mind waiting before we do the whole dramatic showdown schtick?" 

"Hey!" Syd snaps from the floor. "She held me at gun point, what was I supposed to do? You can't blame me, B, I was just looking out - "

Beyond rolls his eyes. "Hush, Sydney. You went to the police. You cried on their front stoop. I know you. I don't know where you found Cat Woman, but it's no hard feelings. She won't be difficult to deal with, anyhow."

"I take offense at that," Merrie Kenwood says, "and at 'Cat Woman.'" She jabs a manicured finger at her dress. "This is Alexander Mcqueen."

"2004 Fall/Winter, ready-to-wear collection," B says. "Yes, yes, I know, I still get print in prison. It suits your figure well."

"Thank you." Merrie tilts her head. "Now, I'm not very hungry, so you can either come quietly and let me cuff you, or I can shoot you in both of the kneecaps and then you can let me cuff you. Think it over, although I am on a bit of a schedule, so don't take too long." She glances at her designer watch for effect.

B hops giddily from foot to foot, like a child at a carnival. "Wowie, that's a hard choice." He puts a finger to his chin. "I think, well, hmmmm," he says, taking a few steps forward, "that I am going to split open your chest cavity and take a peek inside." He looks her up and down, stopping on the hem of her skirt, popping his eyebrows. "And then maybe split open something else, if you catch my - "

Mello jerks, wincing, but it's not from the necrophiliac implications - which might have gone over his head anyway - so much as it is the gunshot. B's sneakers squelch as he stumbles, falling forward as one leg gives out. Right in the kneecap. She's got good aim.

Merrie takes a few steps forward, boots clicking on the tile floors. "I'm sorry, what was that?"

"I said," B grits, pain twisting across his face, as he struggles to stand back up, "that I'm going to _kill you_ and then I'm going to _fuck you_. Or maybe I'll fuck you first, eh?" His mouth twists viciously. "Give you something nice to remember this world by."

Mouth set and at point blank range, she shoots him in the other knee. "I still can't hear you," she says evenly, but there's an evident satisfaction in her eyes from B's gasp of pain.

He could bleed out, he's going to bleed out and die and Mello will be alone again and no, no, no, he can't die, not now, not yet - later, sure, when they get to L he's free to fuck off and die as much as he likes, but _not yet_. Mello has to do something. He stumbles forward, foot catching on something, and it takes him a moment to realize that Syd's grabbed his leg.

"I have to - " he starts.

"Cool it, kid," Merrie says to him, holstering her gun as B falls face forward on the ground. "I told your friend I'd look for you, but no one's paying me for that, so if you want to run, it's nothing to me."

He looks at B's body. There's deep dark blood on the tile, spreading from the center of his legs. It looks almost back. From this angle, it could be L on the floor there. He swallows. No, no, no, it's not supposed to happen like this, they can't keep doing this to him. People can't just keep taking him in and then being horrible and dying - somebody, somebody has to live. Somebody has to stay with him. He needs L. L wouldn't die. L wouldn't do this. B shouldn't do this.

"Is - " he starts, throating feeling thick, eyes feeling stingy, " - is he dead?"

Merrie shrugs. "Not likely, probably just passed out from the pain. But he's not running anywhere anytime soon, and he's certainly not going to be able to make good on his promise." She says it with a straight face, but there's a self-satisfied pleasure floating somewhere behind and Mello can see it. He fucking hates it. It's justified, but he still fucking hates it.

From the floor, Syd breathes out a relieved sigh. "I've got some rum in the back," he says. "Who else needs a drink?

"I though you were a month sober?" Merrie says, dispassionately, though not looking as if she means to turn down the offer.

"Semantics," Syd says, with a bit of a giddy grin, and pulling himself to his shaky feet. Mickey Mouse peeks out at Mello from the edge of his muscle shirt, shallow grin stretched and faded over the skin there.

Merrie reaches into her pocket, pulling out a phone. She pops a conspiratorial eyebrow at Mello. "This was far easier than they said it would be." She presses a few buttons, lifting the receiver to her ear.

Mello's trying to figure out if and how he should respond and what to do with his hands and how to swallow down the thickening lump in his throat and what he's going to do now and how he's going to do it, but then -

Then Merrie Kenwood is on the floor. Feet pulled out from under her, cell phone flying from her hand and skidding across the tile, and B is pushing himself up on one knuckle-white palm to flip her over onto her back and grab her gun out of its holster.

"I wouldn't break out the streamers just yet, doll," he gasps into her face, then before she can speak, shoves the barrel of the gun into her mouth.

Mello watches, unable to move, as she thrashes underneath him as he straddles her body to the floor with his far larger limbs. It's brutal and it's sick and it reminds him of Watson, of being _right there_ but he can't move. He can't. He can't stop it. Why does she have to die, though? Why do people always have to die?

The blood from B's knees is squelching sickly across the floor underneath them, seeping into Merrie's dress. He cocks the safety, cocks an eyebrow, and then - reels back his other hand and slams it down into the side of her neck, just below the ear. She jerks, teeth clicking against the metal of the gun, and then her eyes close and her body goes slack slowly.

Carotid Sinus, Mello thinks. They'd learned it in basic defense at Wammy's. A sharp blow to the point can trick the brain into thinking that there's been a spike in blood pressure and slows down the heart, at which point the subject will pass out from perceived lack of blood. He's never seen it done successfully in person. He tried it on Matt once, for practice, but Matt had just laughed the whole time and said that Mello was tickling him. Fucker.

Mello misses him.

He expects B to collapse after that - it must hurt like fuck, balancing on shattered knees - but he doesn't. Instead, he stands. That shouldn't even be possible at this point, his muscles should be torn, his bones fractured. Maybe she missed, maybe she hadn't hit him right.

Still, there's blood everywhere. Beyond should not be able to stand.

He doesn't look at Mello, or at Merrie Kenwood on the ground, just balances his gun hand against the wall, setting the safety back on and, with the other hand, reaches down to examine his knee. He winces, frowning.

Mello swallows. He doesn't feel like crying anymore, but when B rips off the bottom of his pant-leg, revealing one of the wounds, he's hit with waves a nausea that have him stumbling back into the chair. He wants to stand back up, he wants to _do something_ , but then B is digging his fingers down into the wound and tearing the bullet out with his bare hand and Mello can't move, can't shut his eyes, he just watches.

"How - how - " he stutters, as B drops the bullet on the ground, letting it clink on the tile with a series of tinkling clinks and dripping blood from the body. "How is that possible?" he asks finally, framing it as a question rather than the emphatic statement of _that's not possible_ , because Beyond has a tendency to blur those lines so far as to make them unusable.

There are no lines - real, fake; good, bad; right, wrong - they're all on the table and they're all mixed up and B is yanking the second bullet out of his skin, struggling more this time, until he gives one gasp and heave and a whole hunk of flesh comes out with it.

Mello winces, covering his mouth, wants to ask questions but can't quiet make himself form them and - as he watches Beyond walk over on two battered legs - he doesn't think he needs to. The reality is very clear. No, this isn't possible, but it's happening. No, Beyond Birthday shouldn't know everyone's name upon meeting them, but it happens. No, Mello should not be here, but he is.

B looks down at him, eyebrows jittering and more comical than concerned. "Are you going to be sick?" he asks.

"No," Mello says.

Shrugging off his answer, B kicks a small, decorative rubbish bin over to him. It knocks his boots and in the next instant, Mello is doubling over, retching out lunch with uneven jerks of the body. It gets in his hair and on his lips and his mouth tastes awful and he's desperate for a tooth brush before he even finishes.

He feels a hand in his hair, and he only has to glance sideways at bloodied, knobby knees to know that it's B's. Of course it is. Who else would it be? He doesn't have anyone else.

He shrugs the touch off, grateful and uncomfortable in equal measure, and tries not to be ashamed of his weak stomach. Just to prove himself stronger, he doesn't meet B's eyes when he sits up, but stares directly at his wounds, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hands.

"Does it hurt?" he asks.

B snorts. "Of course it hurts. What kind of martyr would I be if it didn't?" He huffs a laugh and Mello can't tell if he's joking or not, because he's always laughing about everything. "But don't worry, sport. It'll heal."

Mello looks up at his face then. "You shouldn't be able to stand," he says, flatly.

" _It'll heal_ ," Beyond repeats, pointedly, and Mello thinks he understands. He frowns down at the wounds. The bullet holes already look smaller than they should. He's studied this kind of thing.

So then he only has one more question. He stands for this one.

"Are you even human?" he asks Beyond, listening to Syd bustle around in the back room. He'll be out soon. He'll realize.

Beyond smiles - he smiles that smile that paints the walls in cool, dark blues and makes Mello think of laughter on rainy days and bad poetry on notebook paper, crumbled up and shoved in pockets, and washed into a hunk of dryer lint and forgotten for so, so long until you pull it out one day, you pull it out and look at it and think _what's this?_ And you don't know and you don't remember so you toss it in the bin and you never think about it again - of lonely, un-cared for things, like sunless plants and dusty gowns in dusty closets and voices that crack from disuse - he smiles and he's nothing like Mello has ever seen before, nothing like there has even been before and he says:

"How the hell should I know?" and shrugs his way into the back room to, presumably, go kill Syd.

Mello sits there on the lumpy chair trying not to look at his own vomit and wondering if anyone's numbers have changed.

 

\---

tbc.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next week we will return to our regularly scheduled what-fuck-is-going-on-in-tokyo storyline, and our tragic heroes contained therein. i will do my best to update sooner, and mass apologies for the delay! this story is chugging along, i promise, it's just doing so at an exceptionally slow rate.
> 
> i love and appreciate all of you, though, and please let me know what you think, if you have the time? either way, thank you again for reading.


	19. humans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello friends and romans and countrymen! there's sex for a pairing in this chapter that i'm sure quite a lot of you don't like, and i'm minimally sorry for that (because this is supposed to be an l/light fic, but has turned more into a 'jaye writes about all the characters she likes, aka everybody' fic, and i apologize for that.) that said, the events of this chapter are necessary for both plot and emotional development, it was a scene i enjoyed writing, and it is a ship i am awfully fond of, in a weird 'god this is so fucked i love it' kind of way. so i'm sorry if you don't enjoy the content, i'm sorry (as always) if the writing is bad, and i'm very very sorry that things are moving so slow.
> 
> thank you for reading!

_"I was as hollow and empty as the spaces between stars."_  
\- Raymond Chandler, _The Long Goodbye_

 

\---

 

He takes off his tie and jacket and stands in the middle of the room. The first time he'd sex with L it had been slow, too, and sort of uneventful from a certain standpoint, despite the sweat on his palms and the whirring in his head. He does not want to fuck Misa, but he's been put into the position where - in order to keep her fully under his thumb - it has to be done. _She_ has to be done. Heh. That's probably in bad taste. It's certainly a bad joke. It's something that L would say when drunk, or else in that particular mood where the stars roll in his eyes and he can laugh loudly.

Misa sits on the bed, unbuckling the long line of attachments on her shoes - all bells and whistles and needless glitz - and then moving up to the clips on her stockings. She doesn't perform the action with any particular sexual intent evident, but moves rather perfunctorily, as if it had slipped her mind what they're here for.

When she's done that, she stands, shrugging off her lacy little sweater and then looking up at him expectantly. The thing about her is that she is, for all other failings, very beautiful. The big eyes and the bow lips and the smooth lines and soft curves, every man's highest ideal, and tiny, doll-like. He only wishes that he could put her on a shelf. 

"How many people did you judge today?" he asks her, slowly unbuttoning his shirt. He's not stalling. He's just curious.

There are already boxes scattered around the apartment, half-packed with her belongings and ready to be moved in the next few days. She's already purchased another apartment - far enough as not to be suspicious, but not much more distanced than that. She's still paying for this one. If he let her, she'd buy his clothes and go grocery shopping for him, too, but he's already got one mother, thanks, and she's not half so likely to go on melodramatic, rejection-fueled killing sprees. Probably. Light hasn't really been keeping up with his family of late.

He's got more important things to worry about.

"Twenty-six," she says, something peppy and uncaring lighting up her voice, "if you count the ones that were scheduled for today, too. If not, then twenty-four, which - "

"Isn't enough," Light finishes.

Misa crosses her arms, doing her usual petulant pout and tapping her feet with softer sounds than usual, lacking heels. She's barefoot. She's bare. " _Light_ ," she whines, annoyingly and annoyed.

There's just a fundamental incompatibility between them that's only aggravated by her insistence on _love_. As if it's just a thing that she can suggest and then have. As if it works like that. As if it works at all.

L is an outlier, an equation done wrong and something he cannot figure out, something that is not to be studied so much as experienced, and left at that. Anything more involves too many variables, too many unaccounted for, and twice as much blind scrambling as he has time for.

"This is important, Misa," he tells her, carefully folding his shirt over the edge of the chair. "We're saving the world. It's something that can't be done in half-measures."

"I'm trying as hard as I can," she tells him, folding her arms. "I have a job, too, you know."

"I know," Light says, sighing and stepping forward. He'll have to play it like this, he supposes, if he wants to come out of here at all unscathed. He cups her face, tipping up her chin like one would a little girl. She looks like a little girl. She looks younger than she is. Maybe that's why he's not at all attracted to her. "I know you're doing your best," he murmurs, leaning down so that his eyes are staring into her big, blue, color-contacted ones. He lightly kisses her cheek. "Do better."

And she's been rough edges and - and almost smart, for the past few days, almost a challenge, so he's not positive it's going to work, but it does. She melts under his hands, body curling into him like a faithful dog, desperate for any tiny bit of affection.

"Light," she whispers, warm feather-breath brushing softly against his collarbone. "Light, I love you so much."

"I know," he tells her, arms encircling.

"I can't stop, I can't help it."

"I know," he repeats.

He can feel her face pressed against him, the rapid-fire fluttering of her eyelashes, and then wet - water and salt and she's shaking a bit and it's very far from sexy, but still more appealing that any sort of romantic advances would have been. Maybe if he plays his cards right, he can manage to divert her into getting an early night.

But then she squirms a bit out of his arms so that she can look up at him directly and say, with a remarkable fierceness, "I want you to _fuck me_. I want you to fuck me like he fucks you."

Light's throat spams a little bit and he can't decide whether he wants to laugh or bury his face in his palm or a little of both. In reality he just frowns and, before he can stop himself, says, "What makes you think I don't fuck him? I definitely fuck him."

Misa rolls her eyes, wiping at her tears. " _Whatever_ ," she says, somewhat exhaustedly. "I don't care. Do you think I care? I don't care."

"I actually think you care an extremely disproportionate amount about what I do with my body and with whom, given how little I care about yours in return." He dusts at his wrists, standing there shirtless and expectant and feeling far less naked than he expected he would. "Now, are we going to do this or not?"

Misa shivers a little in front of him, small shoulders huddled together, and then wipes at her eyes and nods. "Get on the bed. Lie down on your back." Unzipping the back of her dress, she tells him, matter of factly, "I'm going to be on top."

Light snorts. "If you want to go dominatrix on me, maybe you should put the boots back on."

"Don't be silly," she says, rolling her eyes and suddenly perfectly chipper, despite the tears still wet in her eyes. "I actually have subtlety, not to mention class. Now, take you pants off."

Light takes a few moments debating whether or not to humor her, and ultimately comes down in favor of it being the best course of action. Taking the lead here could possibly insinuate - to her very uneven mind - that he actually wants her, which would no doubt reignite her buzzing romanticism and do much more harm than good. Her current feelings are preferable, even thought they're more volatile. After all, he'd rather have her playing her impotent revenge game with him than planning their wedding, although it's hard to really tell which she's going to do, moment to moment.

He settles back onto the bed, making himself look more comfortable than he feels and dragging down the zip of his pants with a calm disinterest that he hopes she takes note of. He hopes it hurts. He's never really cared to hurt or not hurt her before, but there's a peculiar pleasure from turning this around on her. She's grappling for power and he won't let her have it. He won't let her have him. She can fuck him and she can bargain and she can use those eyes of hers to get most things, but it's hollow and it's dirty and it's _wrong_.

Trading sex for favors is immoral and Misa Amane is not and has never been a good person. Once he has his world, once he's gotten rid of Rem and the investigation team and everything that's standing between him and the gates to paradise - then she can die.

The thought is comforting and as she pulls her slip over her head and stands there in her frilly bra and panties, he's not half so uneasy as he'd been a moment ago.

She climbs onto the bed, barely shifting the mattress at all, and slips slowly up his body, not seeming so much nervous as she does concentrative, like she's studying him. She's probably got a log in her head, noting down every part of his body, every inch of his skin. She'll fantasize about it later, he knows she will.

After a moment, she tilts her head, hand going directly to his crotch.

Light's eyebrows rise and he barely manages not to wince. "What, no foreplay?"

"Did you want it?" she asks, somewhat dully, but before he can answer, she's leaning in and kissing him softly.

It occurs to him that he could pull her back by her hair and refuse - _'I said I'd have sex with you, that's all, that was the whole deal,'_ \- but he's not quite that cruel and the no-kissing rule brings up the inevitable connotation of prostitution. Not that it's that far off. They're exchanging services, and this is his end of the bargain.

He doesn't particularly kiss back but he doesn't particularly not, and when she pulls away from his lips - cheeks slightly flushed and eyes blinking rapidly - he just smiles as smugly as he can manage. As if in rebellion, she slips her hand into his boxers, wrapping around his cock. He's not hard. He's just not. He isn't often sexually aroused by women, though, so it's nothing against her. She doesn't seem to take much offense, and after a pause of understanding, she pulls it up and out and begins stroking it roughly, stubbornly.

The stimulation eventually results in a natural bodily reaction and he starts growing hard. He can't really be blamed - her hands are soft and she does have a certain determination that's being put to good use and, anyway, this is the whole point. He wouldn't be able to fulfill his end of the deal, otherwise. He wouldn't be able to _fill_ anything.

That's another joke L would make and then act like it had been more intelligent than it actually had, with a thin smile and a jolt of the skin where his eyebrows should be. Drunk or wild-eyed, or both.

L. He should think about L. It's funny, but he hadn't even thought to. It hadn't even occurred to him. It's like mixing business with pleasure - not that L should be classed as a pleasure so much as he should be a _necessity_ , like food and water and starched shirts and tea in the mornings. L is integral; pleasures are not.

Misa is as far from either as possible and his mounting arousal - fully physical as it is - agitates him to the point where he can't quite stop himself from gritting his teeth and asking, "Do you really think this is going to make me love you?"

She trips up slightly, rhythm being thrown off, and then gives him a harder squeeze than is probably necessary. She grimaces, like mottled porcelain. "Why do you assume that's why I'm doing it?"

"That's why you do anything," he tells her. "Or is it a game? I know what you've been doing lately. I know why you wanted to do this. You're picking up on the rules and you're trying to to join in. It'd be cute maybe, if it wasn't such an inconvenience. As it is, you're not close to being on my level. Or L's."

Misa pauses for a moment and there's a tiny spark of hope in him that she's been scared off, that his words have cut deep enough to shake her resolve and _get her off of him_. He wants her off of him. It's not as if she's unattractive, really, and she's very clean and well taken care of and her skin looks smooth, but the whole situation reeks with an air of illicit that makes his skin crawl. This _is_ like prostitution. He is prostituting himself to her, like he's L or something. Or else like she's L.

This is what it had felt like when he'd first gotten his memories back. As if he had been lending out his body for profit. Trading sex for trust and security and a whole mess of other things that he was also never given. At least this time around, with Misa, he's the one who'd made the decision. The him that had slept with L for the first time had not been the same him that is here now, that had woken up in that helicopter, sullied and confused and loathing utterly the man beside him.

He does not loathe Misa utterly. He doesn't even think he loathes her a little bit. Doing so would expend too much excess energy on something that already causes him enough trouble.

He dislikes Misa. He dislikes her hands on his body. He dislikes them even when her palm has stopped and she's looking down at the bare skin of his thighs with a crease in her brow. He can feel the pads of her fingers on his cock.

She glances up at him then and her eyes are rather glassy but he can't quite tell if she's aroused or about to cry. The most likely option is a mixture of both.

She says, "Did you know that when my parents were murdered I was hiding under the bed?"

Light stares at her. Light did not know that. Light does not know why she's telling him that now - if she expects it to elicit sympathy, she really doesn't know him as well as she should by now. "No," he says quietly, after a bit. "Now, are we going to - "

"They weren't killed in the same room as me or anything, but when I went out I saw the blood soaking into the carpet and the man carting out the TV. He took all of the electronics and all my mother's jewelry but that's it. He killed my parents for their DVD player. We never even used the stupid DVD player. My dad preferred VHS and my mom didn't like movies, and I didn't like anything except fashion magazines and the people who wanted to put me in them."

She trails the edges of her fingers again Light's cock as she speaks, apparently absent-mindedly, and he can't tell whether it's annoying or pleasurable. He feels something, though. It's a bodily reaction, but he _feels it_ and he has to feel it because that's the deal he'd made, what he'd bargained for.

"I lived with my aunt after that. She didn't have a DVD player and nobody ever came to rob us."

Light grits his teeth. "That's good, Misa, but I don't see why you couldn't have told me all this at some other, more convenient time."

Her reactionary grin is not particularly pleasant. "It's not like you're ever around for long enough for me to speak to you."

"I have work to do," Light says, eyes rolling. He's still hard in her hand. "Important work. Cleansing the world of evil doesn't really come with vacation time."

Misa's smile melts back into a frown of concentration, but not fully, so that the expression wavers somewhere in-between, shifting from one end of the spectrum to the other without settling on any particular emotion. A few moments of this, and then Light can no longer watch her face at any clear angle, because she's leaning in to press her lips against his. Not roughly, but not particularly softly, either. She doesn't kiss anything like L, nor like Teru Mikami, nor like any of the other unremarkable girls of her ilk who'd come before her.

She smells like bubblegum lipgloss and he can feel it smudged across his mouth.

Pulling back, she lets her lips trail around his jaw to hover over his ear - and she's not half bad at this, must have a certain amount of experience - and says, "Aoi Nakahara." Light has no idea what or whom she's talking about for a moment, struggling too much with the sensation to properly consider whatever she's going on about now. But then - "You killed him," she continues. "He died of a heart attack. February 2nd, 2004. You wrote his name down." She slips her free hand, the one that isn't still groping him, into one of his. "You wrote it down with this hand and he _died_ and you did that and you _saved me_. Do you understand, Light? You saved me."

He blinks. His throat is rough and he can't think of what words to say or how to say them, but for the first time in possibly all the time he's know Misa, he's enjoyed hearing something that she's said.

Nodding against her forehead, he says, "Yes."

"You're saving the world," Misa goes on.

" _Yes_."

"I'm helping you do it. Today I killed a woman from England named Mary Sims who drowned neighborhood children in her bathtub. I killed a man from India who ran a human trafficking ring. Arka Johal. And Toru Minami from Japan. And Edward Slaby and Samir Abadi and - "

She goes on. She keeps listing names and Light can stop himself, he likes it. They're dead. They were bad, they did wrong, they _hurt_ other people and now they're dead and the world is just a little cleaner and it's because of him. It all rises in him like a tide and he can hardly breathe straight or think straight, barely notices when Misa slips the condom onto him and then climbs on, sinking down with not even a moment's pause in her list of names.

He wonders how she can remember them all. He remembers them all, of course, but he'd never expected the same from her. He's never expected much from her. He'd certainly never expected _this_.

She grabs his hair and he doesn't even mind and he still doesn't feel any particular attraction to her, but he feels his cock throbbing and his head rolling and when she moves her hips down he moves them up and it might not be pleasant, might not be how or where or _with whom_ he wants to spend his evening, but if he closes his eyes and just listens to the names - blocking out everything else on and around him - he could almost be alone.

The way he likes to be.

Alone with the Death Note.

 

\---

 

"Does it look like you?" L asks her, tilting his head to the side and eyeing Rem up and down with limpid, disinterested eyes.

She stares back for a long time, then glances to the right for a bit, as if giving proper consideration to the question. She looks back, making a sound that may be one of insult and might simply be a natural production of her inhuman throat, and says, "No. He is far more gauche than I am. He looks like a Medieval depiction of the devil. Only with more accessories."

L blinks. He doesn't know where she picked up the word _gauche_ , since he doubts it's anywhere in her Misa's vocabulary - clever as she often proves herself to be, she doesn't seem one to particularly exert herself over excessive intellectual expansion.

Rem has a curious humanity to her, but it only becomes apparent in her relations to the world outside of herself, because her self-contained manner is so stark and difficult to contend with. The assumption would be that a mewling little mess like Misa Amane would drive her rather more out of her mind than not, and perhaps she does, but there is obviously more than enough affection present to balance the scale.

L stands slowly, measuring every shift and movement, and locking his eyes on the stretch of empty air where he assumes the second Shinigami to be. If he's wrong, he probably looks very silly right now, but he is usually not wrong.

"Your name is Ryuk, right?" he asks, tilting his head. There is, of course, no audible response, but just because he can't hear it, doesn't mean the creature can't hear him. Likely, it's heard him more times than he's been at all aware of. "Ryuk, Rem, there's a lot of R's here. Is that a death god naming convention or is this just happenstance?"

Rem looks between L and the empty air to which he's directing his inquiries, eye narrowing in annoyance. "He's laughing."

"Have I said something funny?"

Rem's stance shifts, even as she hovers in the air, and she looks even less eager to converse than usual. "He's always laughing," she says.

"Charming," L replies, although he does not particularly care either way - beyond the fundamental enticement of learning about a completely separate species, but that's not something he's got time for at the moment, or any moment in the near future. For now, all that interests him is how he can use this second Shinigami, and in order to gauge that sort of thing, he's going have to see him in the flesh. Or, whatever it is these things are made out of.

Stepping forward slightly, as far as the chain will let him go, he asks, "Would it be possible for me to speak to him myself?"

Rem looks inconvenienced by this whole conversation, but she answers anyway. "He'd have to touch you with his own Note, and he's not going to do that because he doesn't like to participate in Yagami's schemes. He prefers to watch."

"What a coincidence," L says, "so do I."

He wants to continue with more leading questions, but she doesn't let him advance that far, but rather floats doggedly over so that she's looming above him and blocking his view of the nothing in the air that had so caught his eye.

"What we should be talking about," Rem says, in that echoing drone of a voice that she's got, " is your utter lack of progress with Misa. You're supposed to making her love you. She does not love you."

"Oh, doesn't she?" L asks, feigning shock. "I was under the impression I had swept her off her feet in those whole two and a half minutes of contact. Well, this news really does set things back."

If it is possible for Rem to make expressions, she displays one of utter dissatisfaction now. "Are you trying to be humorous?"

"Not at all," L assures her, "but if I was this would be a very tough crowd. Unless Ryuk is still laughing?"

"Stop asking about Ryuk. You won't get anything from him. He doesn't work with Yagami and he doesn't work against him, and he won't do either for you. He has no stake in this fight. All he wants is a good show and if you and Yagami keep up your lover's spats, he'll have that in spades and have no need to go looking to change anything." Rem pauses, what might possibly be her ears perking up, and then she snaps over her shoulder, "Quiet down, he can't hear you, anyway. If you want to defend yourself, touch him with your Note. If not, then stay out of it."

She turns back to L and they both stay silent and still for a moment as he waits for something to happen. For just the slightest touch and then a vision, sudden and as real as possible, like it had been that first time with Rem.

There is nothing. If Ryuk, in his infinite mystery and amusement, does something, it's not to L and it's not at all evident. Rem's eyes stay flat and blank and she doesn't react as if anything's going on, but then that is no indication, as she seems to maintain the same expression no matter the situation.

Except when Misa's around. Then she softens.

"Well, that didn't work," L says, slumping back against the wall.

"Nothing seems to be working," Rem tells him, cat eye slitting smaller.

He closes his eyes, laying out the floor-plan of the building on some clean, unimpeded level of his brain, setting up all the pieces in their appropriate places. "Things aren't always what they seem."

"And that is you attempting to be enigmatic, is it not? Because you are running out of options and are no longer sure what to do and so all you can manage is to act vague and mysterious and impotently string your audience along, making believe that you have it all figured it out. But you don't."

L doesn't like the lack of inflection in her voice. It reminds him too much of his own. He's feeling more agitated with her than he ever has before, but then - then he realizes what she's doing. It should follow quite logically, shouldn't it? Being not from this world, she's picking up the surrounding behaviors most likely to benefit her. She's mirroring him.

He tilts his head to the side, and she isn't so obvious as to imitate the movement, just stares him down with uninvested distaste. She doesn't believe that he knows what he's doing and he's not sure whether or not she's got the right of it, but it's not the facts that matter so much as perception. He needs her to think that he's doing something. More-so than that, he needs to do something. He's needed to for a long time. If not something drastic, then simply enough to keep the ball rolling, the game going.

He tugs at his bottom lip with one crooked finger, then says, "Is Ryuk going to tell Light what you and I say here?"

Rem looks back to the blank space that she had addressed before. It looks like any other part of the room. Maybe it should hum with aching darkness or some other such rot, but the air is undisturbed by Ryuk's presence. It looks completely mundane. Or, as mundane as an abandoned office building that one is chained up in can possibly look.

"He says he won't tell Yagami a thing, on account of it being more interesting that way," Rem tells L. "It's up to you whether or not you'd like to take his word for it."

"I'll take yours for his," he says, even though she's evidently distrustful of Ryuk. It's far more convenient if they go by the assumption that he won't tell a soul, and if he does - well, they'll get on just fine. "Now, Rem, the question becomes how willing you'd be to deliver a message for me."

"I told you," she starts, the way he'd known she would, "I am not giving the investigation team any information that could lead them to Misa, no matter if you say you can protect her or not."

"It's not for the investigation team," L tells her, rolling his eyes.

"Quillish Wammy counts as - "

"It's not for Watari, either." L slides down the wall, back moving out of its slump and into an inward arch as his top vertebrae meet the cool tile of the wall. He closes his eyes. If he doesn't think too hard about avoiding them, images of Light and Misa pressed against each other play on the backs of his eyelids and he's not sure whether he's angry or turned on. Something slimly like jealously shifts inside him, but he doesn't give it a name and in that case it may as well not be there at all.

He may as well not be here at all. He thinks he could fade into the dull hum of the world in moments like this. He's talking to death and death is talking back and he may as well be dead himself for all the commotion he's causing these days. Before he was the loudest thing out there - second only to Kira, maybe, and only because he throws less tantrums - but everyone heard, even if they didn't know where the sound was coming from. Before L was a name common in the newspaper, the results of his work were everywhere, covering the headlines and being passed around as bored office gossip the morning after a big 9 o'clock news story.

Light has stripped him of importance, or else L has stripped himself, but it all comes down to the same principal. He has split himself open at the seams for a university freshman with a closet full of neat suits and nice IQ score.

It's laughable, but L doesn't laugh, he just sits curled on the floor.

Then he says, "I need you to tell Aiber something for me," letting his eyes fall back open and lock onto Rem.

 

\---

 

Light's orgasm is more wrung out of him than not, and when it hits his body does several stuttering jerks before he spills into the condom. He feels immediately exhausted, worn down and unclean and strangely victimized, even though he is the one in control, he has the power and he could tear her apart with a word if he wanted to.

He wants to. He wants to make her hurt, make her look down at her pale hips and _hate them_ and _hate herself_ , hate him on her and her on him because he can feel it pulling at his skin, the disease and the loathing and he wants out of here, he wants _out_.

Rather more weakly than he intends, he shoves her off, rolling over so that his back is all she can see. Well, not, all. He pulls the sheet over his hips with a jerk of force, covering anything she might enjoy looking at out of defiance more than modesty. The fact that she feels she can cow him this far is disgraceful, but more on his behalf than her own. He's the one who's been giving her room to pull him around. He's been scattered and weakened and falsified.

As with all things of late, this is definitely L's fault.

Light breathes in, sitting up. Collecting and composing and getting himself in order. He says, "Get out," without turning around the face her.

She stares at him, and surely the line of his spine is beautiful, but that's no reason to disobey. He glances over his shoulder, restraining the venom only because it's more impractical than not, and at this point his single goal is for her to be _gone_.

"Misa," he starts, his tone that of a chiding parent.

She's still and quiet and completely bare naked, smooth waist and soft thighs and everything cleaned and crisp and perfect the way any man is supposed to want. But he is not any man and he does not settle for the simple pleasures of the masses. Pleasure is not his aim here. If it was, he'd have achieved his goal long ago. At this point, with the grinding discomfort of his life at the moment, his new world couldn't be farther from bringing such to him, but that is what he has signed up for. Sacrifice, martyrdom, and - eventually - peace. One day he will have his world, one day things will be right.

That day, however, is not today, and Misa Amane in his bed is not right.

He does sharpen his expression then, and that gets a reaction. She stiffens, crossing her arms across her chest. "I have to pack some things," she says softly, "so that it doesn't look suspicious. Me being here this late."

"Fine," Light says, "then go do that. Then _go_."

She purses her lips, brows thickening as if she wants to say something else, but he waits and it doesn't come. Softly, she stands, retaining some sense of modesty and dressing quickly. Good. It will be such a relief to not have her flouncing around the place in her underwear and begging for attention like some kind of neglected puppy. Maybe for once he'll be able to get a decent night's sleep in his own bed. Maybe tonight.

He lies back down and closes his eyes, imagining rain, imagining a snowstorm, imagining walking slowly through chill air by himself - or with L there, there really isn't any distinction - and the slow warmth radiating despite the weather. He twitches and knows that it's only his bed-covers and, in an actual storm of such magnitude, there would be no such comfort. He does not like storms. He does not like L. And yet, he dreams.

Or he would dream, but he can hear Misa rattling around the apartment, gathering easily moveable things. There's still mountains of her belongings here that she'll need to have professionally moved, but for now, he's content with only getting rid of the bare minimum, if it will get rid of her.

Finally, after what feels like far too long, the door clicks open and shut and her shoes tap on the wood floors and out into the hallway and then he is alone. Finally, peacefully alone.

He closes his eyes. He can see the storm again, but only barely, and from here it seems sort of comical, and cliched in a way that he despises. L wet with the rain and laughing in a way Light has never seen him laugh. Light does not care about laughter. It's frivolous. He doesn't care about much.

Blinking his eyes open, he sits up. He feels dirty, degraded. He should shower. He should wash her off of him.

Instead of getting a towel, he picks his clothes up from the floor and puts them back on. Instead of going for the bathroom, he heads to the door. He does not want to sleep alone.

 

\---

 

He stands at the corner, pretending to smoke a cigarette and watching the apartment complex. He's lucky that Yagami doesn't live in too upscale a neighborhood, or else he'd look highly suspicious at the moment. As it is, it's only a vague middle class - probably chosen for its nondescript location. Maybe Yagami thinks if the rent's low enough, he can pay it even if he gets rid of Amane. And he is getting rid of Amane.

Her clothes are mussed and her hair is back in a ponytail and Aiber's never before seen her look so unstudied. She's dragging a roller bag behind her, a couple of purses over her shoulders. He thinks about approaching her, about switching his game plan around, but that hadn't been in the cards and he's not quite sure how to go about it. It doesn't matter much, anyway, as she's called a taxi, and climbs in the moment it arrives, designer bags and all.

His cigarette burns down without him ever taking a puff and he stubs it out on the side of a building rather than the conveniently provided ashtray. This city is too clean. It's unnerving. And, like Yagami, like most clean things, that's a sure sign that there's more going on under the surface. Dirty, dirty underbellies.

Aiber doesn't know what he's waiting for. Watari had said not to come, had said he has other operatives to do this sort of thing, but Aiber doesn't see any of them around now. He doesn't see much. Except, then - is that?

Oh. _Oh_.

This is just his mighty fine luck - and his luck has never been mighty fine before.

Yagami is shuffling down the street, posture tucked in and an overlarge coat wrapping him up, almost like a disguise. It takes Aiber a moment to see him in it, but the hair-color is striking enough and it's quite difficult to mistake Light for anyone else. He is absent, however, of his usual strutting assertion. Typically, he is the type of person that attracts the eye of anyone he passes, but his presence now is pointedly detracting. He doesn't want to be seen.

Aiber considers it his good fortune - _mighty fine_ , even - to have caught him at a time like this. He's heading towards what must be the train station, still in operation as it's not too late into the night yet, but it won't be for long. Wherever Yagami's going, he evidently doesn't intend to come back. Which can mean only one of a very limited pool of possibilities.

The option at the forefront of Aiber's mind, however, is - 

He stops. Yagami has stopped. He's tensed up, looking around, eyebrows drawn down as if he's listening, and no - no he can't have heard him. Aiber's no professional at this, but he's not an amateur either, and Light is hardly a criminal mastermind, Kira or not. He doesn't have the training, and he's far too self-assured to doubt his security, but he _knows_. He's changed direction, turning left down an alley, away from the station. Wherever he'd been going before, he's not headed there now.

Aiber could wait around and hope he changes his mind, but that's not likely going to happen, and he doesn't have all night. He's got a new bottle of port waiting at his hotel room and a very pretty Taiwanese woman who'd given him her number at a bar in Harajuku. Playing Tom and Jerry until dawn is a waste of time.

There's nothing for it. He shoves his lighter in his pocket and approaches.

 

\---

 

"Hey, Yagami," he hears, the badly pronounced Japanese following him down the sidewalk, "isn't it a bit past your bedtime?"

Eyes rolling on instinct, Light flattens his expression before he turns around, squaring his shoulders as if in preparation for battle. In truth, he's just exhausted, and he wants Aiber to fuck straight off as soon as possible so he can go to the building in Ikebukuro and sleep. He doesn't care that there's no bed. He will sleep on the floor. It's good for your back.

"Aiber-san," he greets, polite as ever but obviously displeased. "I didn't know you were staying in this part of town." He's not, of course. He's spying on Light. He's tracking him, no doubt because the taskforce has stopped and now he's got to do the dirty work himself. 

At his shoulder, Ryuk grins. His presence is a bit of an annoyance, but on the other hand, if he hadn't grown bored of watching over L and flown back, Light never would have realized that he was being followed. Shinigami do have a few uses, after all.

"Yeah," Aiber says, jovially. "It's a very small world." He looks Light up and down. "You look terrible."

"Excuse me?" Light's jaw grits. He'd like to punch Aiber in the face for more than a few reasons, but he holds himself back. He'll find out his name sooner or later. He just needs to get him and Misa in the same place. Death is much permanent than a few facial bruises, and ultimately much more satisfying besides.

"Stress, isn't it?" Aiber continues, as if there had been no break in-between. Reaching out, he jerks Light's wrist forward with surprising force, the clumsy bulk of his fingers branding in against his skin disgustingly. "Any wrist pain? You'll probably get carpal tunnel if you keep it up the way you're going."

Light grits his jaw. "Are you insinuating what I think you're insinuating?"

"Well, no, not excessive masturbation, although I hear it has similar physical effects." Aiber smiles wide-set and utterly inorganically and Light would very much like to rip him apart.

He wrenches his hand back, lip curling with disgust. "Cute," he says.

Aiber's got dimples around his mouth; they twitch with his chuckle. "People are always telling me so." Dusting off his palms, he moves as if he might walk off, but then circles back around so that it becomes clear that he's just pacing to clear his head, and isn't going anywhere anytime soon. "I've been watching a lot of television lately. News stations, you know - everything else you've got playing in this country of yours in utterly indecipherable to my sensibilities - and well, nowadays, most all of them have got body counters. Down at the bottom of the screen, where they show the time and the temperature and all that. There's a little 'death toll' section. Kira's big tally, you know? And I'm sure it's not half of the actual number, especially since the media only counts heart attacks."

"I've seen it," Light says stolidly, letting nothing show on his face. Next to him, Ryuk is scratching at his chin, empty grin near matching Aiber's.

"Hey, how come I didn't know there was a counter, Light? That's so cool!"

Light ignores him, not pointedly so much out of self-preservation.

"You must be proud," Aiber says.

He is proud. He knows he is. He can't feel it quite right now - too tired, too run into the ground, too many things going on and in and around him - but he is proud. His world is being made and these are only the first steps. Right now, though, he wants to sleep. He doesn't have the energy for this conversation, and no desire at all to converse with Aiber in general.

"Not here," he says, voice hushed and stringent. "You want to throw around accusations at work, where the Kira case is my job and something I have to focus my energy on? Fine. It's your right to speak up for what you think, and even though I have no respect at all for _you_ , I respect the basic human liberty of expressing what you believe in. But you come to my _neighborhood_ and you _track me down_ simply to harass me with unfounded accusations? That is not alright. I know why you're here. I know where your hotel is and you're halfway across the city from it. I know what you want, but you're not getting it. So, please," he says, with an earnest determination that rises up him as easily as if it were honestly there, " _get the hell away from me_."

Gritting his teeth, Aiber moves in closer, crowding him against the wall of a nearby building - Ryuk watching on as if it's a football match - and Light lets him because anything else would be too much action for him to properly assert the claim of _victim_ in this scenario - should he need to tell his father about it.

"You don't know what I want. You don't have _any idea_ in that pretty little head of yours of what I want." He stands tall, speaking with a self-assertion that, while suggested, has never been fully present up until this point.

Light doesn't like it. He'd prefer him to go back to being a joke.

Clearing his throat, he squares his shoulders and, meeting Aiber's eyes, says, "I don't know where he is."

Because yes, of course he knows what he wants. Of course he wants the one thing least likely to be wanted, that which falls by definition into the class of _unwanted_ , despite being highly in demand all across the world. There's a great different between L the detective and L the man, even if they're literally the same in name. Who names their kid L, anyway? What fucking parent has a child and decides, _oh yes, the twelfth letter of the Latin alphabet, that's how I want my son to be known._

He wonders if Aiber knows his real name. If the word 'Lawliet' would mean anything at all to him, or just fall completely flat. He almost wants to try it out, but - in the unlikely event that Aiber actually knows what he means - that spells trouble. Because Light shouldn't know. Light wouldn't know, unless he can swing it as L having told him, but that's a long-shot and, even if the rest of the team would buy that, Aiber never would. And rightfully so. L would never tell.

Aiber leans over him, broad shoulders hanging across like a shade against the street lamps and city lights that shine dim in this part of town. He rolls his eyes.

"Of course you do, _Light_ ," he says, addressing him by his given name for maybe the first time ever. His toned has lightened, however, almost dangerously, and he slides a smile around his lips like something he's tasting for the first time. "You know where he is and you know what's going on and yes, you are Kira. I know these things. _If_ is not a word that's going to factor into this conversation."

He pops his eyebrows, almost theatrical in movement.

"And what are some words that _are_ going to factor into this conversation?" Light asks, stolidly, not letting on anymore than the bare necessities of expression.

"Oh," Aiber says, sprawling himself out across the late night sky, "I thought I'd talk about L's legs and his knees and you know, his cock, and see how it went from there." He winks like an underpaid restaurant host and Light can barely hold back his hands from balling into fists.

"You're disgustingly uncouth," he grits.

"You kill people with a journal, so if we're going to be spouting names at each other - "

Light seethes and he does it visibly because, in this situation, nothing less would be realistic. "You can't base your argument on ridiculous, unsubstantiated allegations that you came up with to -"

Aiber laughs. "Who's arguing? I'm just trying to have a conversation."

"Well, you're not very good at it. Personal space, for one thing," Light says, stretching out and arm to gesture Aiber back, "is something that's usually allotted." His efforts are not very successful.

"Hmm," Aiber says, not letting up for a moment, and in fact simply moving in closer, bending Light's elbow with the force of his weight and crowding him with skin-crawling proximity. "We must be used to very different kinds of conversation." His voice has gone low and no - no - but yes, and _ugh_.

If Light had any faith left in humanity at all, he might be able to convince himself that Aiber is not, in fact, attempting to seduce him on a public sidewalk two blocks from his apartment and on no ground except those of bewilderment and distraction. But the low voice and the heavy eyes spell the answer clearly, and his smile quirks with a self-satisfactions that speaks in ledgers and volumes about how much he's doing this just to get under Light's skin.

His hips angle forward and for some reason Misa's pale, naked body flashes through his head and no, _not again_ , he's not doing this again. He is not letting them and their dirty hands paw and grasp at him. He is not a shiny object fit for the consumption of the most tenacious and he is not going to let this man _fucking touch him_.

"Get off, you son of a bitch," he spits, pressing his palm flat to Aiber's chest and shoving him away.

He just laughs, unkempt blond bangs falling in his eyes, and he does not seem happy and he does not seem amused and there is a desperation under the action that speaks more volumes than it doesn't. "I thought you liked that kind of thing," he says, almost icily, to Light.

"Not from you," Light shoots back, brushing off jacket for no other reason than that he feels it on him still, the breath and the fingers and the oily charm and it _disgusts_ him.

"So he's special, then?" Aiber asks, and it takes not particular stretch of intellect to know who _he_ is. It's who it always is. He's still in everything, no matter how absent.

"He was," Light replies, "yes. But he's not here anymore and I don't know if he's even alive and I'm trying to deal with that, and the case, and my ex-girlfriend moving out, and I really don't have time for this disgustingly childish assertion of manly dominance, or whatever it's supposed to be. So, Aiber, I'm asking you to fuck off right now and not come back. And if you ever touch me again, I'll - "

"Kill me? Or just tell your daddy? If you planned to use either of those options against me, you would have done it by now. Don't kid with me, kid. I know what you are."

He grips Light's jaw, jerking his chin up so that he's looking up to Aiber from below, and fucking westerners and their fucking ridiculous height and the fucking elderly woman who's crossing the street across from them, who doesn't look over and doesn't do a thing, how is that fair? How is any of this fair? He didn't ask for Timothy Morello, or whatever his name is, and his tragic romanticism, and he didn't ask for Misa Amane and hers.

He didn't ask for L and he's taking him anyway, so shouldn't that be enough? Shouldn't the world let up when he commands it to. It always has before. It's never dared disobey him.

"You don't know anything," he spits, jerking his neck in an attempt to slip out of Aiber's thick, imprinting grip. The hold just tightens and he feels dwarfed and out-muscled, but not afraid, not ever afraid because Aiber can jerk him around however he likes, batter him bloody after L's example, and it can only do more good than bad. If Light comes in to headquarters roughed up enough tomorrow, and with a finger pointing at Aiber, it's not long before the bastard is out of there for good.

And maybe it should be unexpected - but it isn't - when he feels warm whiskey breath on his mouth and nails in his hairline, being pulled and pressed up against Aiber's lips in a show of force more than anything else, warm and dry and angry, sandpapered, tiring and _tired_. Aiber sinks down against him and they're kissing and it's not boiling rage, and it's not lust, so much as it is movement, the assertion of a point without having to actually make one.

The sidewalks are wet like it should be raining, and it must have earlier, and Light's feet are cold, even in thick socks and loafers and he stumbles, lifting half off the ground in an attempt not to fall against his opponent.

Light kisses back because his body has become a commodity and he trades with his lips as well as he lies with them. He's not like L, he's not _making fucking bank_ , but he's on his way. Is this what greatness is? Kissing seedy men that one loathes on residential sidewalks at 12am? Is this mundanity? Is it either of them, and is there any real distinction?

He questions things in the few moments that he forgets to breathe and it's not nice and it's not comfortable or arousing or the right kind of warm, just fleshy lips and fingers on his skull, and when Aiber finally rips himself off of Light - like he hadn't put himself there in the first place - it all comes flooding up and out and then he can't breathe.

Turning sideways, he doubles over, spitting on the concrete, on the little blades of grass that prick up between the slabs.

His ribs feel unanchored in his chest, like his skeleton might have just slipped out of sink with the rest of his body. He stands up slowly, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. He would like to vomit, just to make a point, but he hasn't eaten recently enough for any effort to the that effect to pay off.

He's slumped and he's tired and he wants to sleep. He wants to sleep with L. It is not that complicated. It's very simple. He doesn't want to be here, he wants to be in an abandoned office building in Ikebukuro. He looks up at Aiber. 

"I'm going to fucking kill you," he remarks.

Aiber is reaching into his jacket, unsteadily, tilting sideways and grasping around as if he's got a whole store of objects to root around through in there. At length, he pulls out a pack of cigarettes, and at an even longer length, a lighter.

He breathes smoke into the cool night air and looks annoyed with the way it billows around him. "I'll take that as a threat," he murmurs, uneventfully, as if the kiss had been the climax - so to speak - of the evening, and everything here on in is just falling action. "But I'm sure you could pass it off as just a turn of phrase, couldn't you?"

"I could pass off anything as anything," Light tells him, not really thinking about him. He looks at his watch. The last train leaves in ten minutes.

Aiber holds out the cigarette, offering Light a puff. After a moment's consideration, he takes it, clean fingers brushing Aiber's ashy ones. After another moment, he tosses the cigarette on the ground, crushing it underfoot, for no reason more than simple human spite. Aiber stares at him for a few seconds, wide-eyed and comical and awake, then laughs loudly. It seeps into the night like it was always meant to be there. He lights up another.

"You should learn to tell when you're beaten," Light says, watching Aiber's thumb stumble with the switch of the lighter. He can still feel lingering pressure on his lips and he is disgusted.

"I don't consider it a loss until I actually do die, and so far I've never lost." He breathes out heavily, leaning down back on the brick beside Light as if they're suddenly pals or something. "You know how L caught me up? Tax evasion. I was always great at making money, never so good at managing it. Same goes for love, and children. I have a couple, you know? A five year old son. Maybe six now, I haven't checked in. And a little girl. Her first word was _Dada_ , even though I've only ever met her twice."

"I don't care," Light tells him, tilting himself out of reach of Aiber's nicotine breath, "about your dysfunctional familial situation."

Aiber laughs again and that seems like all he's capable of doing. "And I'd like not to care about yours, but these are strange times, Yagami, and we do what we have to."

Light rolls his eyes. "And I suppose you _have_ to sexually harass me on street corners, huh?"

"Well, I'm not doing for my health."

The warning light flashes for the train - _five minutes_ \- and Aiber's hair looks oily and unwashed, tousled as it is against the wall behind them, and Light is not going to be able to get to L, tonight, is he? Not when he's being monitored by the world's least sober professional. He could, of course, say to hell with it and board the train anyway and hope against hope that Aiber doesn't follow him or keep tabs in some way, but - tempting as it is in his current state, waning and absent of the usual straining elasticity of thought and demeanor - he knows well enough that as much would be painfully naive, and unabashedly dangerous.

Even drunk with exhaustion, he can navigate through the amateur traps they're laying him. He can keep it all together. He can hold it steady, hold it firm.

He'd be steadier with L, though. The weather is cold and the windows on the apartment complexes are foggy with the condensation of night and Light does not want to go back into that unfamiliar room with the stiff bed and pinstriped sheets that he hadn't even picked out. He hates everything in the linen closet. He doesn't even know where the aspirin is. He wants tea. He wants the Death Note, but he doesn't need to write in it. Just touch it. Like L. Just have it there. Him. It. One or the other. He's got pages but it's not enough. He's got a fading bruise on the edge of his jaw but it feels comical and weak-willed.

Aiber is looking at him like he's waiting for something and Light is trying not to snap, trying to keep his arm from shooting out and snatching him by the collar and shaking him until he dissolves, a bug knocked off of the windshield. _Four minutes_.

If Aiber's waiting for something, he gives up then, and stares out into the streets. "I honestly don't even really care if you're Kira or not. Just give him back. Do whatever you want with the world, but why don't you give him back?"

Like L is an object to be traded between them. Like he's an object that Light would trade.

 _No_ , he's going to say.

 _'m going to write your name down_ , he's going to say. _I'm going to get my girlfriend - impossible to get rid of as she is - to look you in your face and she is going to tell me your name and I am going to write it down and you are going to die._

 _How is the weather in France?_ he's going to say. _Would it be alright to move there? Do you know somewhere we could stay?_

He's going to say, _Can you keep a secret?_

He doesn't say any other that. There's pop music, tinny and bright, and it takes Light a moment to realize it's a ringtone, and then Aiber is digging a phone out of his pocket, frowning, and flipping it open hurriedly.

"Wedy?" he says, with mild confusion in his voice. "I told you, I haven't got anything yet. Wedy?" There's a long pause, and then his brows jump up and his looks from Light to the empty street to sideways down his wrist, where he clutches the receiver. His lips open, like he wants to repeat the name, but then he pulls back, snapping the phone shut.

Light should maybe frown with concern, but his face stays flat. He asks, "What did she say?" more out of propriety than curiosity.

Aiber shoves the phone back in his pocket. "She didn't. She breathed heavily and laughed manically." And then, without a pause in-between, "I have to go." He pushes off the wall and strides concernedly down the street, as if Light and L and his passionate effusions with relation to them both have been replaced in his mind's uppermost position by something far more urgent.

Light maybe ought to care about this, as it means Wedy is definitely not dead - maybe - and something strange is going on - maybe. But he doesn't.

With three minutes to spare, he boards the train, Ryuk cackling at his shoulder.

 

\---

 

He's listed prime numbers in his head up to 2,417, recited half of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ from memory out loud with Rem as his only audience, and mentally solved a case from last week's obituaries before Light comes in.

L hadn't been expecting him back tonight, and he just slumps down onto his backside - from where he'd been tucked up in a strange birdlike squat - and says, "Sakimi Moto was murdered by her son-in-law. You should tell someone when you get into headquarters tomorrow, or else make an anonymous tip, but I feel as if the case would look good on your record."

Light stands in the doorway, looking blank and expectant. He doesn't move for long enough that it makes Rem visibly uncomfortable, and she shoots L one last look through her cat-eye, then fades out through the far wall.

Light's steps are soundless as he moves across the linoleum floor, and when he reaches L, his body falls into an even dip that lands him softly on his knees. His palms go out, grasping solidly, and when he pulls L up by the jaw and kisses him squarely on the mouth, there's little to do but blink his eyes, flex his palms, and accept it.

He smells like cigarettes and Misa's perfume. L wonders if she'd been smoking again. This might be romantic, if romance weren't dead and they hadn't killed it. He wraps his unchained hand around Light's back, moving in slow circles, conjuring familiarity.

"Rough night?" L asks, once they pull back from one another, though Light's breath is still clogging up his airspace.

Light doesn't respond directly, just cards his fingers through L's hair and says, "I want to have sex, but I want to sleep more, so we'll do it in the morning."

L's eyebrows go up. "Will we? I suppose I don't get a say in this, do I?"

Rather hunkering down against him, Light tugs them into a stretch on the floor. "You'll say yes," he murmurs, eyes closed, pulling L against his chest like they're a married couple settling down for a quiet night in and - and this had not been expected.

L had foreseen anger, or stoney silence, or maybe a twitching mix of both, but Light seems exhausted and resigned, but not really out of humor, and it's a more functional mood than L has possibly seen him in since he's gotten his memories back. Either Miss Amane has some very particular _talents_ \- though it's doubtful that such would do anything for a man of Light's inclinations - or something else had happened.

He almost wishes Rem would come back, because even if she'd have no more answers than he, L would at least have someone with which to share his bewilderment.

He sits up, palms pressed against Light's chest for leverage, and levels his eyes at him bluntly. "You're going to sleep on the floor? You? The god of the new world?"

Light doesn't open his eyes. "It's good for the back."

L snorts, facial expression not shifting an inch. "Did Misa dope you up or something? You're uncharacteristically _okay_. No catastrophes today?"

"Oh, plenty of them. I ran into Aiber on the way here and he roughed me up and felt me up and almost held me up, but Wedy's gone out of her mind or something - I don't know what that's about. And I had to prostitute myself out a girl who I could kill anytime I liked, in any way I wanted, if it weren't for her overprotective pet Shinigami breathing down my neck - and now that I think of it, Rem's probably listening to this right now and graphically planning my murder at the same time. And my whole family, not to mention my coworkers, think that I'm a philandering homosexual with a bleeding heart. My mother gave me a bunch of condoms yesterday. My _mother_ , L. Like, a ton. I have so many condoms now, oh my god, and I have so many people I need to kill and I just _don't care_ right now. I don't care. I'm tired. I want to sleep. The floor is good for you back. Let me sleep."

He rattles it all off with a curious restraint, changed from his usual tone in that it seems almost self-aware. He is his own catastrophe, he is coming apart at all his seams and doing it with a stolid dedication that L doesn't know whether to respect or be infinitely wary of.

So, he says, "Alright. Alright, sleep."

It has been rather a while since L has watched him, anyway.

Settling in, he thinks, with an uncharacteristic honesty of sentiment: _sometimes I want to pretend the only thing that's happened to me is you._

 

\---

 

He calls back twice, but there's no answer and he doesn't really expect to get one. That hadn't been Wedy. He knows all of Wedy's laughs, knows how she frowns when she sleeps and always consumes a healthy breakfast of fried eggs and cigarettes. She doesn't go outside without make-up on and she doesn't sleep with anybody she feels she can't physically restrain, should the need arise. She taught herself Spanish through telenovelas and reads weekly science journals just to prove that she can. She likes dogs.

She might be dead. Aiber's known her for going on five years now and she might be dead. They've had enough history that is separate from their involvement with L, respectively and otherwise, for the prospect of the loss to weigh heavily as an event in itself, rather than just a tail-end of tragedy tacked onto L's disappearance.

Aiber is losing people. He's losing people that he's only just regained.

He's called a cab because the trains have all started on their last rounds, and as he waits on the sidewalk, pacing back and forth with an unlit cigarette clenched between his lips, he dials Watari. Maybe now he'll share his oh so _non-essential_ information. Maybe if Wedy's body turns up, mangled by that psychopath, it will become essential.

Maybe Aiber should just go back to France.

The line has only just clicked live when he feels a solid tap on his back, and swings around on wobbly legs, hoping against hope that it's Yagami back for more and he can knock his lights out - so to speak - and blame it on instinctual self-preservation.

"Yes?" Watari answers, firmly professional as ever.

Aiber means to say something, but there is a Shinigami in pale purples and deathly whites hovering over him, staring down with one bright yellow eye and a look of vague consideration, and the words don't come.

"Hello," it says, "Thierry Morello. I have a message for you."

 

\---

 

In a world very separate, in the dark and mangled rot, the air bristles and the bells chime - castle bells, kingdom bells, church bells; loud and clanging, deafening - and the Shinigami King opens his eyes.

 

\---

**tbc.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so that was that! gosh, i really liked writing light being passed around the merry-go-round of romantic and sexual advances. anything involving deconstruction is a hoot, honestly. sorry there's far less L lately? he's my favorite character, so his lack of presence is not a conscious choice, so much as it is that he's a stationary point, whereas light, misa, mello, b, etc. are all out in the world and moving about, so he's getting less screen-time as a matter of course. that will soon be rectified as we move into the third arc (or rather, as the second and thirds arcs kind of coalesce into a great big mess of 'hey this might actually have a plot!')
> 
> and yes, that last line there was a nod to the future of this fic, which involves far more shinigami and mystical-related things than is has up until now. hopefully i can write it halfway decently and some things will be going down in the next few chapters. until, then, thank you again for reading.
> 
> all reviews are very much appreciated. like, my heart bursts with joy at the slightest response and i love you all very dearly.


	20. the magician

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so it's been a month since my last update, but! i have a somewhat explanation which is that this chapter is nearly 15k and the one after it is nearing 17k and so i sacrificed timeliness for quantity, you know? the quality is suspect, as always, but i'll leave that up to you guys to decide. okay, couple of things:
> 
> 1) the poem that L is quoting in the first scene is tulips by sylvia plath. it has nothing to do with sex but hey, artistic license and interpretation, eh? 2) the shinigami king and midora (while both canonical shinigami) are probably not very in character here. i know they appear in the special oneshot chapter, but i don't, uh, actually remember the special oneshot chapter. (i'm not even positive i ever read it?) so alas, theses are just characterizations i made up for them myself because i'm awful. i hope that doesn't bother anyone too much. 3) i pinkie promise the syd and sadie stuff is important to the plot. i hope it's not dull or annoying, as we're pulling up to some plot shifts that will become apparent next chapter and this stuff is necessary groundwork.
> 
> alright, that's all, i think? anyway i hope you all had a good thanksgiving if you live in the states, and if not, then just a good november in general! i know i was really awful about answering reviews last chapter and i'm really really sorry about that, so thank you to anyone who reviewed last time, and thank you all just for reading in, period.

_"'The worst fault you have is to be in love."_

_"'Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue."_

\- William Shakespeare, _As You Like It_

 

\---

 

_I am a nun now, I have never been so pure_ , L thinks. Roger had always hated Plath, and L had taken that as a reason to sing her praises effusively - or as effusive as he could manage to be while still retaining the solid veneer of having nothing particular inside of him. The tutors and nurses all believed it, though he wonders now whether it was only because that's what they'd been paid for.

A had believed it because he'd wanted to.

B had not, because he hadn't wanted to.

It's a curious thing, that the greater the intellect, the less disposed towards fact and reason one is. You become so high in your own estimation, growing while the world stays the same size, that everything soon looks small and moveable. Reality becomes distortable, and you class your role as you see fit: _A_ is for martyr, _B_ is for villain, _L_ is for… 

Light.

He stirs awakes beside him on the dirty floor and the thought hits again, just a line, read at 14 and understood then, and understood differently now: _I have never been so pure_. He's slightly hard against Light Yagami's slacks, head blurry with the night, with poetry, with all the trappings of love.

That word keeps coming up, again and again. Maybe that's what L stands for? If he decides it does. It's all about decision. That's what he's not making, by making so many. _I will make Misa Amane fall in love with me, I will send Aiber a message_ \- he hopes Rem has finished the job by now - _I will fuck Kira on the cool floor of an abandoned building as he wakes_. Tiny things, but never the answer to the real question that's being asked:

_What are you going to do about your_ \- and this is only to give a nameless situation a name - _love?_

Kill it, bleed it, destroy it? Lock it away? Call the authorities and have someone else clean up the mess that's been made? Or the other, the whispering possibility that he considers only to marvel at the absurdity of, but then spends long hours marveling, as if he can't bear to let it go away again. A house in the countryside, an apartment in town, locales around the world to slip in an out of, hand in hand - metaphorically, of course, as they'd look abominably stupid going around sweating their palms against one another like schoolchildren - taking on cases, drinking cold coffee and sweating in the dawn and fucking on Sundays while the church bells of every little European town toll. 

Light stirs awake beside him and L doesn't know what to choose. Or he _knows_ , in that gut-clench, _don't make me look at it, don't make me look it in the face_ way that one knows unflattering truths. But as Light wakes up, he holds out anyway, for a change in the atmosphere, a shift of the Earth's axis to calm him back to denial. 

The world doesn't move, and so L moves it himself and, as Light's eyes blink blearily open, he leans in and kisses them closed again.

Light kisses him back, startlingly, with a force that grips him by the jaw, leaving fingerprints of hallway dust across his face and making it hard to breathe. If L had allergies he'd be dying on this floor. He might be dying anyway, Light curling his tongue against teeth, against everything, violent and pressing and demeaning in what it demands. _Surrender_ , Light says, without speaking, but L doesn't know if he's asking for it or offering it.

L gets harder in his jeans - and he's been wearing the same clothes since the motel, hasn't washed or brushed his teeth or slept on anything but hard ground, only managed to get toilet breaks by goading Rem into walking him the six yards to the restroom a few times a day - but L is hard in his jeans and no matter how sullied things get, he only wants it more.

Light pulls back gasping, understated laughter rippling through his blinking eyes, and he says, with barely a pause for air between the words, "It's not morning yet."

L shivers with the semantics, with the denial for denial's sake. Maybe he wants L to beg for it, or maybe he just wants him to ask, and maybe that should be enough to make L refuse to do either of those things, but he is not so stubborn in the glow-warm press of bodies - closer, closer, just a shift of the hips, _closer_ \- but Light had crawled back to him in the middle of the night, after fucking someone who is not him, and he thinks maybe they should both be permitted to make allowances. 

Circumstantial imperative or not, he doesn't like the idea of someone else touching what he's claimed for his own. Is that so very cliche? Is he the jealous boyfriend now? Isn't that Light's role? L is not supposed to care. L hadn't cared about Mikami or whatever he'd been called - _Mikami, Teru Mikami_ , he remembers it perfectly, of course - but then he'd just been… a man. Someone on the street, someone met in coffee shops. Someone locked out of their little world, the one Light has chained him up in. Or had L? He's the one who brought the chains in the first place.

Misa is different, though. Misa makes him seethe, makes him lonely and fierce, makes him feel things that L has not yet figured out how to. Or if he knows how, he's not equipped with the right abilities.

_Surrender_ , isn't it?

_It's not morning yet_ , Light says, and L snorts, makes like he's going to roll over, and says, "Then I suppose we should just go back to sleep."

His skin is buzzing, he feels all lost under his clothes, and he knows the sensations are mirrored in Light, because if they weren't he wouldn't take that chance. L only says no when he knows they will say yes for him, and Light does, tugging him back and up against him, nearly climbing on top in a rough rut of clothing and breath and the fluttering need.

That's just a pale word for a dirty thing, though. Sex is what it really is. Hormones. Arousal. Lust. Those are all too clean, too. It's just the desire to come, to stop the aching, hurting want that rides through them with laughing chemicals. To _fuck_. Dust off all the lovely words, the poetry, the nice parts that dilute it, and that's all it is.

They're going to fuck on the floor. Like animals, or people in porn, or young men without the presence of mind to purchase mattresses for their captives.

_I am a nun now_ , L thinks, his fingers clawing up Light's back, feeling the press of his cock against the worn material of his thighs, and it's not anything like what dear Sylvia meant, but she is dead anyway, and the cruel irony would likely not send her spinning in her grave. There's a measure of truth to it, though. He can count on one hand what he has left, and he clutches that against himself as it writhes on his lap, pressing slick, sharp kisses to his neck.

He pulls Light back by the hair, arching his neck into a tendinous dome, forcing them to confront one another. "How was your night with Misa?" he asks, masochism disguising itself as sadism.

Light pins him by the shoulders, thrusting forward, body grinding down with uncomfortable force, so close they may as well be merging skeletal systems, and the fact that it hurts justifies it. Violence is the cure for devotion, and Light is feeding himself its medicine in great gulps.

He leans down, so close to L that, quite comically, their noses brush, and says, "She got me off."

"That doesn't answer my question," L replies, thrusting up against him, tit-for-tat, blow-for-blow, like a barter system where they spend all their currency on one another. Left poor and destitute in the streets.

L has his mind, has his body, has a few sets of clothes - some of them Light's - and a toothbrush and a pair of extended handcuffs and _time_. Time alone with the ceiling, with the murky stars that bleed into sky-scrapers, forming a chilly light-source that seeps in the boarded up windows and makes Light's hair glint like neat new pennies. Currency. Light sucks a bruise on his neck and this feels like the only thing he has now.

_Surrender_ , the fingertips ask of him, the air and the pressure and the raging, fizzing, vile _need_ \- pretty, even words for ugly, uneven things - and he is afraid of his answer.

He cants his hips up against Light's, and is met and forced down again, rubbing his flesh so raw that it hurts, but he doesn't care, or if he does it's in the way that demands _more_. That's been the strategy of his insides with Light Yagami from the beginning, hasn't it? _More of this, whatever it is._

He pulls up Light's shirt, jerking it over his head, catching his busy arms just a moment before Light is unbuttoning his jeans, slipping them down as far as they'll go, stuck between the rough floor and the press of L's body against it. He's so so hard he thinks he could die and it's an embarrassing, mid-sex thought that he'll later roll his eyes at and ignore, but now it tears through him, racking his body with punishing desperation.

It buzzes in him. It's such clawing weakness. Sometimes he wishes he could hack this part of his anatomy off - make a proper nun of himself, take up life as a castrato and let merry tunes follow him instead of bloodsport and mussed bedsheets - but that would strip him of a valuable weapon. Sex and intellect, polar opposites on the evolutionary spectrum, but somehow merged by now into the hulking mass of present day humanity, and the tools most essential to his success.

Well, maybe he could have caught Kira up - hook, line, and everything else - without all the fucking, but he's certain it would have taken a great deal longer, and a line count of several thousand extra in conversational banter.

He's scrabbled up from his limp 180 to a near 90 degree arch, pulling Light soundly between his thighs, forcing him there as if he wouldn't march willingly. His cock is crushed briefly between their bodies, but the sharpness is diluted by further disintegration as he feels a warm spike of flesh press between his legs, and -

"Oh," he gasps, a theatrical mismanagement of himself, and Light slows, the cognizance of the words too stiff for it to strike him as a rare expression of sexual pleasure. "Oh, well, this isn't going to work."

"What?" Light huffs breathlessly into the chilled sweat on his throat. "Crisis of conscious? It's a few months too late for that. Years, probably."

"Nineteen," L replies, pushing him backwards, "but I'm not much for counting at the moment." He doesn't let go, just paws, bleary and over-aware, at the small of Lights back with his palm. "Since you can't seem to remember to scare me up a a mattress, I don't suppose you've brought lube?"

"I have one on order," Light says hurriedly, frowning, face a fine red tint, pulsing just like the rest of him. "The mattress, not the lube. I…" His hands shiver on L's skin and he doesn't look anything near ready to roll over and call it a night. Quickly he backs up, pulling himself up on his knees, out of the prayer huddle over L and into a wiry stretch that shines in the radioactive glow of Tokyo. Pennies. He's so beautiful it flips around the scale to ugly, then makes another loop back again.

He bares himself like a prize for the taking. "Do me, then," he says, holding out his arms, an invitation that he shouldn't be giving. _Don't let the bad man in, little boy_. "I won't mind. Not tonight. Everyone's having a go."'

As if that makes the invitation more appealing.

L sniffs, looking away, even as he rocks his hips against Light's, bare cock rutting weakly against the expensive fabric of his slacks. "You will," he tells him. "It'll hurt, you'll probably bleed. I won't be gentle."

"Since when is that new?" Light kisses his mouth before he can answer, sucking all the air out of him, chapping his lips and clawing at his scalp with young hands. He pulls back abruptly as he'd come on. "You've never been gentle with me since the first day we met."

L does not flip them around. "I met you before you met me," he says. "I saw you on a screen. You were very pretty." He doesn't wonder if Light minds the past tense.

Leaning in, Light moves as if to crawl into his lap, slow like a sleepwalk, one hand going to his zipper, the other keeping a firm hold on the flimsy material of L's shirt. "And what did you think of me then?"

L remembers it quite vividly, the burning scent of his overworked mainframe, chugging through profiles in a dull slog, stuck in one of the slow dips that every case has where the romance of the crime is wearing off, bleeding into the tired reality of the day-to-day grind. He had rolled his eyes at Light Yagami's name - very maudlin of his parents, wasn't it? - but otherwise not blinked at the perfect records, perfect teeth, perfect nostril alignment.

He'd looked like a bore.

On his back now and watching as Light probes down between his own legs - wincing slightly, the pain a vague annoyance - he's struck with how inaccurate a hunch that had been. Light is many disastrous things, erring on the side of maniacal, and breaking into tiny pieces every other day, but he has never been uninteresting.

So, is that the only qualification for adoration? This is not adoration, of course, nowhere near so flimsy and red, painting his hands in grasping shades. But there are bits of it dribbled around, coating the mismatched surfaces like some pseudo-surrealist painting in someone's attempt at an art gallery in lower Manhattan. He'd caught a murderer in one. A shooter. Simple deaths, clever chase. For a painter he'd been firmly mechanical in the application of death, laving it on in smooth strips, like a day-job.

L bucks against Light's body, slowing his movement. This is his day-job.

"I changed my mind," he says, pulling Light close by the jut of his wrist. He hadn't answered the question, but Light is hard and vexed and doesn't seem to care. "You can do it."

_Surrender_. Hello, watchword. As if letting himself get fucked in the ass in a particularly painful way is some sort of grand romantic gesture. It's not. He knows it's not. He does not know how to gesture. He has unlearned his subtleties through Light's presence. He can only shout. It's not what he wants it to be but it's the best way he knows how to do it.

Light blinks and doesn't seem to understand _surrender_ , and then it clicks what he means, like a record hitting the notes, and he swallows twitchily. "What about the blood." He forgets to ask it.

"What about it," L says, and pulls him close by the jaw, kissing him like there's a brass band in the background, playing up a violent crescendo.

Light flutters against him, caving as easily as if he'd been waiting to, held up by barely a string. They move in a strange, gaiting rub against one another, legs locking and wrapping, settling into an uneven pretension at the missionary position.

"Is this because you don't want to hurt me, or because you want me to hurt you?" Light asks, fingers pricking into him with the uncomfortable grit of skin against dry skin. This is going to hurt them both.

L doesn't know how to answer that right now, left leg shaking slightly, though he has no idea why - not like he hasn't done this before - so he says, "I'll tell you tomorrow." It's an IOU of a reply and Light barks flat, spacial laughter out quite abruptly against his shoulder, right as he slips another finger in.

The pain is in his lower back, spreading out dry and clawing, like sand against skin, the desert writhing underneath him, between his legs. Light breathes on his face.

He'd been 11 when B had first tried to play doctor. Dirt under his fingernails, grinning in L's hair. _"Go away."_ L had tried to sound bored. He hadn't been bored. His heart had thumped, feeling small and loose in his chest, and his limbs hadn't moved much, lying back, fingers twitching. _"Go away."_ B hadn't gone.

Light doesn't go; L doesn't ask him to.

It's trauma, but released and recognized, and the knowledge that _it hurts_ , that it is allowed to hurt and that he doesn't have to explain it to Light, is oddly freeing. He is not trapped against the floor, he is not the kept boy with the bright mind of the mid-eighties who'd gone where they'd told him. He is no longer a quiet child, no long a troubled teenager, no longer a sullen man in a sky-scraper counting bodies and making lists. He is, if only momentarily, released from his daunting identity, allowed to breathe in and out in rapid succession on the floor as a devastatingly - unfairly - attractive boy struggles with the mechanics of fucking him more or less dry.

And he is allowed to enjoy it, no questions asked.

_Ah_. Maybe 'enjoy' isn't the right word; Light doesn't even look like he's enjoying it, wriggling his hips in order to hit an angle that will make it smoother. There's spit involved, at least, and it cools on L's skin, shivering his flesh, making his cock pulse and his head reel. He feels stretched open and pulled in conflicting directions with a harshness that only breeds more desire, but rightly shouldn't.

Hello, surrender. Nice to meet you. I am L Lawliet, I am 25. I do not have a home, I have never had a home. I have never.

It's not the _cock, ass, fuck, domination, submission, pain, hate, love, violence, closeness_ that necessitates his giving in. That's all just the layers on top, drooling in a slow honey crawl across his body, making him drip pre-come, making Light stare down at him with wide, ringed eyes, like any hormonal mess of a kid being allowed to release its tremoring lust onto and into something. Surrender is something separate, something that happens because he asks it to, because he takes it with his frail hand and invites it in.

It's very easy, so easy that it's become extremely and undeniably difficult, because the simple has always been something he's denied himself.

So, what's the worst thing that happens if he says yes? If he hands himself over and says, _Alright, Yagami, I love you. Alright, let me take you to London, to Singapore, to the far Canadian north._ Are these just testosterone dreams that float through at 4 am, and dry up by morning? Or will he look at him tomorrow and think yes, _yes_ , this is what I want?

They both wince through the bulk of the act, unrestrained discomfort lashed on one another, but there's a sort of communion to it. A mutual recognition. Why even fuck when it hurts, except that it's one more thing to have in common?

L comes onto Light's stomach with an arching cry in his throat, body quickening and loosening, mind _surrendering_ , and it is far and away some of the worst sex they've had, but that doesn't feel like a bad thing, like anything but an necessity. His body falls in loose, disconnected parts to the cool floor. He has never been so pure.

 

\---

 

There's a bit of blood, but mostly it's come and sweat and exhausted amusement.

"Is it morning now?" Light asks, settling against him in the muck of bodily fluids and emotional torrents. They are both sore and pleased and tired. "It'll have to be morning at some point."

L doesn't respond to the question. "It's a very curious thing," he says, looking elsewhere, "but, Light, I think it happens that I love you." Looking elsewhere, elsewhere, elsewhere.

If Light blinks, L doesn't see it, doesn't feel the flutter against his cheeks. "Ah." There's fingers in his hair. "Good to know." As if to say: _I already do_.

 

\---

 

**twelve years ago.**

 

\---

 

Sadie Markovitch is studying microbiology. Sydney Grauss is failing at graphic design. Despite these rather disparate circumstances, they fall in love in the cold spring of 1992, in the park at Russell Square, drinking bad coffee out of little styrofoam cups and laughing at all the couples that are richer and prettier and more sober than they. Sadie wears her hair in braids and Syd draws designs in ink on her skin and they sleep on the floors of other people's apartments, fucking and smiling and forgetting to give a damn.

Syd drops out of school in the winter of '93, and Sadie follows his example a year later, throwing up her hands and dodging her mother's phone calls. In '96 they buy a studio apartment and the empty shop below it for dirt cheap, and fix it up over the course of the next few months, until it's fit to pass government inspection. Syd works construction and Sadie waits tables to make ends meet, and in the summer of 1997, _Syd's Tattoo and Piercing Studio_ opens its doors to the public. 

In the year 2000, start of the century and romanticized as the _dawn of a new age_ , Sadie Markovitch meets a boy in a bar.

He has ratty hair and heavy eyes and he buys drinks for several people, though he never touches one himself. But he laughs like a drunk and he smiles like a friend and when Sadie, laughing and tripping over her own feet, tells him that he has, "great cheekbones," he asks if she knows anywhere he could stay the night.

And this is how Syd and Sadie - in their little flat, with their mattress on the floor and their trunk-sale television and their beanbag chairs - gain a lodger.

B is too skinny for his own good, and he only eats when you remind him to, but he learns to draw as well as Syd within two weeks, and has a mind for calculations that makes it easy for him to help Sadie manage the business, and all of the customers - tattooed and grinning and varied - agree that he is a prodigy. He says he is 19, he says he has no family and nowhere to go, he says that his name is just a letter, and that he likes Sadie's dress.

"Very slimming," he murmurs, eyebrows popping, repairing one of the tattoo guns with steady hands.

"She doesn't need slimming. She's slim as can be already."

Syd puts his hands on her waist and Sadie laughs and tells him to can it, and three nights a week B minds the shop while they go out dancing. B tells bad jokes and makes shadow puppets in the streetlights and doesn't seem to gain or lose weight, or sleep, or do anything boys his age are meant to do.

And then one day, _laughter_. Sickening and far too loud, filling up the empty morning space. Syd wakes and the sheets beside him are cool and he hears it. He goes down the stairs. It is January and they've kept the heat off to save money. Sadie is on the studio floor, overlarge night shirt flipped up to show her skinny thighs, a dark pool of blood cushioning her head.

B is laughing, arms crossed over his chest, one hand cupping his chin. "I didn't kill her, Sydney," he says, wolf grin spreading like a gash on his face. And then, "She's very beautiful, isn't she? I always thought so, from the first."

"What did you," Syd says, "why did you - I - I -"

"I followed her home like a stray, and she was as good a mother as anyone could ask for. You would have had pretty kids, even with your genes in the mix, I think. But it happened just like I thought it would. I didn't kill her. I just watched."

"Why didn't you - what happened?"

"She fell. Slipped, I think."

"No, no, no, no, no, no."

Syd gets on the floor. He takes her face in his hands. He gets blood warm on his fingers, on his sweatpants, cradling her in his lap.

_No no no no no no._

Everything gets dark. When Syd looks up again, B is gone. He leaves no belongings, no mark or indication that he had ever been there, and none of the customers really ask about him. Everyone's too preoccupied by their horror at Sadie Markovitch's tragic accident. That's what the coroner calls it. Accident. _No no no no no no_. Edmund tells Syd to let it go. _No no no no no no._

Without Sadie - or B - there to manage the business aspect of _Syd's Tattoo and Piercing Studio_ , it loses patronage, and he has to take on extra jobs to keep it afloat. Small ones at first, then bigger. Passports become his niche, though, and they're what he's best at. There's an artistry to forgery, and he lets himself seep into it, and it into him. He sells the flat upstairs to a nice working class family with twin baby girls. He drinks by himself, without Sadie there to take her half of the bottle, and vomits on the front stoop by himself, too. He gets a smaller apartment, a few blocks away. One where he'd never fucked anyone against the counter, or lain in bed all day watching the Saturday cartoons. He lives alone. He does his job. Jobs.

Five months and some days later, B shows up on his doorstep again, looking exactly as he had the first time, only absent of the drunken girl giggling on his arm, saying, _"Syd, Syd, look what I've found!"_

"I need a passport, old sport," he says.

"I need my girlfriend back, you little bastard," Syd says, jaw grit and drunk with more than the rum.

B stares at him for a long time, head cocked, then says, "Deal."

The graveyard is not hard to break into.

"What are we doing?"

"Magic!"

Syd swigs heavily from the flask that has a permanent home in his pocket. "You and your magic tricks."

The digging is heavy work, but B doesn't look to be breaking a sweat, and Syd has no idea where this will take him, or what it will achieve, but there is a curious gravity to B that makes one want to trust the fantastical to be in him - if it's in anybody.

And there she is, already far rotted, crawling with maggots, eyes hollowed out and flesh seeping off the bones. Syd retches in the grass. B stares down, a queer kindness in his eyes. "Still so pretty, I think."

"You're sick - this isn't - this isn't - " _This isn't going to work_. He's known it the whole time, of course, a laughing little surety in the back of his fluid mind, but seeing her there, dead as dead can possibly be, he doesn't want to look anymore. He doesn't want to be here. He wants to be back in the bed in which she had never slept, in the apartment at which she had never lived or smiled or danced. "I don't want to," he tells B, eyes cast up from where he's slumped on the grass.

B is a tall, billowing shadow. He'd stopped wearing the jeans and t-shirt a few weeks into his stay with them, and had started trading styles from day to day - tuxedos to leather jackets to sweater-vests, with no seeming preference over one or the other - just trying on identities, and slipping them off just as easily. Now he's in a thick black raincoat, like some primetime villain on a budget, grinning in the moonless night.

"You're here now, Sydney. Might as well."

He flips a thin pocket knife out of his sleeve, drawing it along his left palm with slick determination and not even a flinch, then holds it over the open coffin, squeezing out at few drops of blood. It looks near-black in the dark.

"What are you doing?" Syd asks, but doesn't get an answer.

B rubs at the wound when he's done, like it's a small pinch and nothing else. He looks down at the body, face one of vague expectancy. When nothing happens after several minutes, he shrugs. "Oh well. Was worth a shot. I thought maybe it would do something for her - body and blood, sacraments and whatnot - but it looks like the magic only works for me." Idly, he falls into a crouch in the grass next to Syd. "You're still making me a passport, though, old friend, unless you're keen to end up like the Missus." His eyes flick up, scanning Syd's forehead for a moment. "That, however, doesn't look to be on the cards tonight."

Syd swallows down another sip from his flask, mouth still tasting of sick. "What am I supposed to do without her?"

"Who says you're without her? She's right there, isn't she? Go on, take a souvenir or something. It'll do you good."

"A - what? I'm not going to - I'm not - " _Desecration_ , that's what that's called.

"Oh, come on," B urges, leaning over to reach down into the grave, rooting around for a bit. Syd should be worried about this, Syd should stop him; he doesn't. Then there's a snap and a thick sound of tearing, crinkling dust and achey bones, and B sits back up with a dismembered leg in his hand, brushing off loose flesh and maggots like it's nothing to him.

Syd retches again.

"Here. It's for you! What, you don't want her? I'll keep it, I guess. I always did like lovely little Sadie, from the first moment I learned her name."

His lips quirk. Syd's throat spasms further.

 

\---

 

Showered and far drunker in the grey morning, Syd asks, "What name do you want on your passport, then? Do you even have a name?"

B is at the sink still, scrubbing obsessively at Sadie's bone, making it shiny and clean - and Syd can't think too hard on that, can't confront himself with the reality of the situation, or else he won't be able to move or breathe or get on with living.

"My name is Beyond Birthday," he says, over the rush of the faucet.

"That's not a name."

"It's my name because I say it's my name. Everything is something only because it's said to be. _It's my name_. But it's not what I want on my passport. No, let's say, Rue Ryuzaki, shall we? That will do just fine."

 

\---

 

**four years later.**

 

\---

 

Syd cowers on the floor when B walks in. He'd known. He'd known it was too easy. Monster movie villains don't die so quickly. There's a long chase scene and plenty of casualties, and at the end only the heroine survives, traumatized forever after. But the heroine is already gone.

She's been gone for years.

There's a picture of Sadie pasted on the wall with the rest, posing with him and a burly man who is tattooed head-to-toe in strange blue squiggles. She laughs at the camera. She'd laughed at everything. She'd laughed at the biology teacher that had suggested she suck his dick if she wanted high marks. She'd called Syd straight out of class and they'd had a few drinks and shared the amusement like a meal between them. That had been early on. Everything thereafter had only gotten funnier.

And then B. And then everything got less funny.

He remembers sobbing on the linoleum floor. He remembers the imprints of B's boot-tracks in the mud out front.

As Beyond Birthday stands over him, presence mighty and forbidding - though in a smiling way - he winces for the contact. For the blow that sends everything lights-out. This is the place where she'd died. He doesn't mind so much if he can do it here, too.

B doesn't move.

"Are you going to kill me, or what?" Syd asks, not looking up.

"The latter," B says flatly, "of course. You think I'd go for predictability, do you? That's your problem. She always was cleverer than you." He flicks a finger at the picture on the wall.

"Yeah," Syd agrees, "she was."

"Besides, I still need my passports, don't I? I've got the little lady in the front-room taken care of - blessed little Mihael is wrapping her up for safe-keeping now - and we're going to get our money's worth out of her pretty mouth, I'm sure. You did us a favor by bringing her around, actually. She knows things. Or she knows people who know things, anyway, and that's close enough. Even if I do feel a little betrayed by your cruel misconduct. Really, Syd, I thought we were friends."

"No, you didn't."

B smiles. His eyes hover over Syd's forehead again, and his teeth look sharp in the growing evening dim. "Just get it done. Then you're free. Pinkie promise."

 

\---

 

There is nothing there.

Aiber blinks, staring at the empty street which had, he's very _very_ sure, a moment before been crowded by a mass of unliving flesh and one steely yellow eye, and - and a voice. It had spoken. The echo is sharp in his ears. It had been _right here_.

There is nothing there.

"A? Is that you?" Watari asks dully over the line, professionalism almost wavering under the tepid exhaustion that Aiber knows is weighing on him. It all feels very far away for a moment, and then he snaps back into reality, just as Watari's firmly repeating himself. "A, _come in_ , if you're there."

"I'm here," he says, swallowing as he marches up and down the sidewalk to look around both corners, then up into the sky, where the murky clouds would cover the thing if it was up there, but he can't help squinting anyway.

"Not altogether, I assume." Watari's voice is clipped over the line, but not unkind.

"I haven't been drinking," Aiber snaps, and then, as if to completely invalidate the previous statement, segues directly into, "I just saw the Shinigami."

L, were he the one on the other end of the line, would make some droll comment examining the irony of what he'd just said, even as his mind was already calculating through every conceivable possibility. Watari wastes time with no such amusements. He knows full well that Aiber is a capable agent, and has never let his more Bacchic pursuits interfere with his work before.

"Rem?" Watari asks, fingers already clacking over keys and echoing lowly through the receiver.

"Do you know another god of death? Yeah, that's the one. It just showed up, said my name, said it had a message for me, then - poof! Gone."

"Poof?" Watari repeats back. "It actually went poof, or - "

Aiber's eyes roll hard as his cab arrives, and he holds up a hand to signal the driver to wait. "No, it didn't. Hell, it didn't do anything. It was just _gone_. It's still gone. It didn't fly away or anything, it literally, like, popped out of existence. Can those things teleport or something?"

"I wouldn't presume to know. My research on the subject has turned up nothing but ghost stories and pop culture." More typing. "Where are you? Was this recent?"

"Just happened. I'm a couple blocks down from Yagami's place, near the train station. Tell me I'm not making a wild intuitive leap when I say that these two things aren't unrelated."

"I told you not to go there. You disobeyed an order." Watari's voice is not gruff or condemning. Rather, he sounds as if he's simply, uninvestedly, stating a fact.

"I considered it more of a suggestion," Aiber counters, humor present but not heavily relied upon. "Besides, it's a good thing I did come down, or else I never would have stumbled on this surprising new turn of events. He took the last train, also, which means he's out for the night. And with the Shinigami hanging around, I'm guessing that means - "

"L is still in the city," Watari finishes for him.

"If he's alive, that is," Aiber says, mostly because he longs for Watari to correct him. To inform him, most assuredly, that L cannot be dead.

He doesn't quite. "We're to act as if he is, until we have a body. Those were L's instructions, before he disappeared. The game is still on, and this is a rather telling implication of the arena. If L is still in Tokyo, it won't be hard to follow Yagami's trail directly to him. The only question is whether or not we ought to, or just let L play out his own strategy."

"We've been waiting for L's strategy for weeks. Nothing's happened. We should just - "

"You should get in your taxi and come to headquarters, is what you should do," Watari says it with a hint of amusement in his voice.

Aiber freezes for a moment, then looks from the exhausted cabbie, to the tiny lens shooting around the glare of the stoplight. "Traffic cameras?" he asks, finally sliding into the backseat of the cab and giving the driver directions uptown.

"I can even see the suit you're wearing," Watari confirms. "Nice colors on you."

Through the unwashed window, Aiber watches the block where he'd seen the beast pull away, fading into obscurity among the masses of indistinguishable city. _There's nothing there._

"There's something else," he says, quite suddenly, having forgotten his original reason for calling in all of the otherworldly excitement, but it's back now, stirring worry low in his belly. "Wedy called me a few minutes before this happened. Or, at least, somebody using Wedy's phone."

The clacking stops. Everything on Watari's end of the line becomes suddenly stiller and colder.

"And this person said?"

"Nothing. Just a lot of laughing and heavy breathing, which has me a bit more worried than not, since last I checked, Wedy wasn't really the type for prank calls."

Watari's silence is heavier and more distinct than most of his conversation has been thus far. He says, after a moment, "Did you try and track the location? Did you hear any background noise, or any distinguishing indication of the area from which the call was made?"

"It's not like I really had the time, not to mention the fact that I was a little thrown off. Just laughing, and then the line went dead. If I had to guess, I'd say it was a man, but it sounded purposefully disguised, so who knows." The taxi pulls through empty city streets and into more crowded ones, out of the residential areas and into the city proper, where quite a few late night stragglers hang about the shops and restaurants. "So do you think maybe _now_ you'll tell me about this Beyond Birthday? Or is it still _'nothing to do with the case at hand?'_ Because if anything has happened to Wedy, I swear to god - death gods, and christian gods, and anything else that could possibly be up there - that I will - "

"Aiber," Watari puts in firmly, cutting him off with little exertion, but a whole heaping ton of presence - even through the phone, "just get to headquarters."

The line goes dead and Aiber huffs, snapping the phone shut, and glances out the rear window, eyes scanning through the streets. There are people and lights, life, but as for what he's looking for? There's nothing there.

 

\---

 

The transition is seamless and when Rem next observes the world around her, it is not a world she is expecting.

Light pours from every inch of the throne room, and then darkness, falling across the scene like it has substance to it, like she could touch it and it would be fleshy and moist. Then everything fades back into shades of native grey, and the room - if it is a room, hollowed out in the landscape as everywhere in their realm is - breaks even.

Rem blinks her eye at the Shinigami King, who hangs where he has been hanging for millennia and is expected to hang for many millennia more. He is awake. He was not, the last time she had been here, in this world. 

_Home_ , she thinks, though it is not a concept that comes to her naturally. She hasn't been back to the Shinigami realm since she'd gone to deliver Misa her notebook, and between now and then she has seen more than she had thought such a tiny little place full of tiny little people able to contain. She has seen murder, and Sunday mass, and sex on a park bench. She has seen movies. She likes romantic comedies. She understands neither the comedy nor the romance, but she likes Misa's face when she watches them. Soft and distracted and worlds away from herself.

Rem is worlds away from her now, but any confusion as to how she'd gotten here has dried up by now. The King can do things like that.

His thin, golden eyes blink at her. "Rem," he says, giving the word a new shape, repainting the fabric of their withered reality. The King can do lots of things.

"Majesty," she says, dully, out of propriety more than anything else. She does not like the King particularly, but she respects his authority, uneven as he is in enacting it. That is simply the way of things. "Did you sleep well?"

It's only polite to ask. He hasn't woken in years, as far as she knows.

The King gnashes his teeth consideringly, as if chewing on the stale air itself. "That depends on what awaits me in the conscious world." His eyes circle around in his head, little legs dangling impotently.

Perhaps he should look pathetic, hanging there like an ornament, but he doesn't. There is a strange regality to him, and a sense of the very, very old. No one knows quite how long he's been around. No one remembers the king before him, or if there ever was one. The largest earthly trees in the oldest earthly forests cannot compare a whit to his age and might, and yet he seems a decrepit thing in comparison to their planes and trains and automobiles, their televisions and their laughter and their ever-shifting governments and borders and laws. Change and disruption are, perhaps, what keep humanity from stagnating the way that their ancient glory has.

The stories say that the whole of the Shinigami realm was golden once, brilliant and gleaming, the way death was meant to be. Time has wasted it, rusted it to ash, made it grey and clouded with night. All that remains of their long-gone splendor is the throne room.

It's an inaccurate title. The room doesn't even have a throne in it. A term adapted from humanity, no doubt, same as their games and their jokes and anything of real worth left in their realm. Humans are disgusting, no doubt, but Shinigami are hardly any better.

"What were you doing on Earth?" the King asks her.

Rem hangs warily in the wide space of the room. "I have business down there," she says, not keen on sharing that she'd gone down purposefully to give a Note to a human. She doesn't want to be lumped in with the likes of Ryuk.

If the King can make expressions, he is frowning, evidently unsatisfied by her answer. "But why were you speaking to _a human_ who is not in possession of a Note?"

Rem frowns back. "Are there rules against that? I've never seen it written anywhere."

On the floor below the King, a comparatively small, spotted creature scuttles lazily out of the glaring shadows, claws scrabbling on the stone floor and making cold noises spread through the chamber. Midora, Rem thinks, is her name, and she is the King's foremost advisor, or was, in the ages before the majority of the court either died off or fell into similar slumbers. She remains, however, among the common folk, gambling and chuckling and writing the odd name, when the fancy strikes. Her strange, lizard-like body looks even more withered with age than when she'd seen her last.

She waggles her loose eyes and clicks her tongue at Rem, as if in greeting, then disappears back into the dim that falls in contrasting slopes against the glow of radiant light that fills all else. This room is a halfway place. This room is a storm, swallowed. The scent of Misa's perfume, which usually lingers in Rem's head - flittering among the rest of her senses, reminding her of just _what_ she has become - has gone away. It is replaced by a chilly emptiness, and it seeps into her every limb and tendon.

She does not like this room.

The King scoffs, taking no notice of Midora, throat choking out a few hacks of disapproval. "The _writing_ of rules," he says, with evident disdain, "is a new addition to the culture of our breed. Along with the writing of names. I miss the days when nothing had a name. When death was built in blood and bone and the blues in the night sky, not neatly filed in alphabets of human invention."

Rem does not like this room. She does not like this creature, small and stingy, wriggling there in his forgotten grandeur. He looks like an old clock, or bit of outdated machinery, set aside because it has outlasted is usefulness, and kept only out of vague sentiment. The glory of the gods - mighty and varied as they may be - is but theoretical.

A year ago, she could not have thought it possible that she would ever desire so fiercely to return to Earth, but Ryuk - though he should not be encouraged - is right about this place. It is rotting, all the way down to its golden, gleaming core.

She frowns and says, "It's been thousands of years since the first human writing system was created." She'd hope he'd have gotten used to it by now.

Midora returns on wriggling legs, movements quick and indiscernible, and croaks, with evident merriment, "Yes, and he's been asleep for most of them." The King glares down at her and she grins sheepishly back up, jagged teeth pointing this way and that. "He pops an eye open every once and a while to make sure we haven't all rotted out of existence, then goes back to his slumber." She leans her bulbous head on one hand, dwarfing her palm. "He enjoys a good rant, too, and you just happen to be on the receiving end this time."

"Quiet, Midora," the King pronounces, though he seems unfazed by her insolence. Leniency is one mark in his favor, at least.

"Don't know what for," Midora continues, unabated, as if he hadn't spoken, "not when Ryuk's out playing toy soldiers with all of his favorite little humans."

That's very much true. Rem may not be acting according to the strictest Shinigami codes - social, more than formal, because though they have their stringent laws, far more is governed by widespread public opinion - but she's hardly half as bad as Ryuk, who has more or less become Light Yagami's faithful dog. If anyone ought to have been whisked back home for an earful, it's him.

"Ryuk?" the King asks, little head twitching to the side.

"He's young," Midora titters from the floor, rolling around to sprawl on her back, beady eyes watching the King from directly below. "You probably don't know him."

The King's chains rattle slightly, though the air in the room is utterly still, and the atmosphere spikes colder with his eyes. "I know him. I don't like him."

Midora laughs like a giddy funeral march. "No one does, Majesty."

The King's eyes cut back to Rem, and suddenly his power is tangible, crackling and yellow and piercing in the wide space between them. His might may, in fact, be forgotten, cloaked under a thick layer of dust, but it is there still, and it is waiting. The more he sleeps, the longer it waits, clogging up like an old pipe.

He could tear universes apart, if he wanted, she is sure. He could erase her existence, undo her very being. He could swallow her bones and grow a garden of her pearly flesh in his gut, all without changing expression, with Midora still giggling on the floor.

"I like you, Rem," he says, after a long silence. "You're smart. You taste like humanity, but you're smart. I don't like you sniffing around humans without notes, though. I don't like that at all. It's unseemly. Like playing with your food. I called you back up because I could sense your proximity to the unmagnificent."

Rem can tell as much by now, her only question is _why now?_ She has been talking to L for weeks, and for all his peculiarities, he is most assuredly unconnected to the Shinigami realm in everything but his association with Light Yagami. Why had the King woken at her approach of Thierry Morello, who is equally unremarkable? Why now, of all times?

"Ryuk, though," the King is saying, "where is he? I can't feel him. He's indistinct."

Rem frowns. "You don't sense his presence on Earth?" she asks. That is strange. The King has the power to see much farther into the human world than the average Shinigami can, right down to the mechanics of things. Locating one of his subjects is all but elementary.

The King shakes his head, as if insulted by the suggestion. "There are too many to choose from. Which is he? Which of the three?"

It takes Rem a moment to understand, and even when she does, she doesn't. "You sense three Shinigami on Earth? Right now?" The King nods, and Rem's eye flashes down to Midora, widened and questioning, and she can tell that her shock is shared.

"No one's missing," Midora says, rolling back onto her front to sit up and properly asses the situation. "At least, not that I know of."

"Three," the Shinigami King repeats. "Which is he?" His eyes close and Rem watches him watch the world, watches him seep from one plane of reality to the next, with barely a hitch in expression for the go between.

Rem does not know what this means. She and Ryuk are the only Shinigami currently with business in the human world, as far as she is aware, and the only ones who have been down in a long time. Another joining them would be extremely unlikely. Two is just unbelievable.

She swallows. "He's the one in the Japan," she tells the King, curious to know if he will tell her where the rest are located.

As if newly annoyed by this information, his eyes snap open, cold and shining and sharp on her. " _Which_ one in Japan?" he asks. And Rem has no idea what to say.

 

\---

 

**nineteen years ago.**

 

\---

 

Sundays are always the worst. The congregation will sing and L will hide in the upper levels, with the weight-bearing beams and the filtered light and the cobwebs. He knows all the hymns and the prayers and all the people who come every week, withered old countryside faces, sun-spotted and each one of them gripping hard candies in their pockets, eager to shovel them off on him.

"I don't believe in God," he tells Father Gregory, who follows him up one chilly december Sunday. "It's statistically unlikely that he could exist."

"I imagine it is," Father Gregory says, "and yet that that changes nothing for me. Curious, isn't it?" His eyes twinkle and he is kind and L does not dislike him. He is the youngest priest in the parish and bakes well and never corrects L on his Latin pronunciation. "Now come on, there are some men from town who would like to meet you."

L can tell immediately that Quillish Wammy is not a spiritual man. His back is straight and his mustache is clipped and he wears an air of superiority that, though muted, expresses obviously his condescension to Father Gregory and men of his ilk.

L dislikes him immediately.

Wammy shakes his hand like an equal, though, even as Mr. Ruvie - his rather more subdued companion - seems to be made uneasy by such a pleasantry being exchanged with a six year old child. After they introduce themselves, Wammy suggests, quite unsubtly, that Father Gregory go and get tea, and then it's just the the three of them. L is left alone with two grown men - surely in their mid-fifties at least - with no particular idea of what they want or what he is going to do if Father Gregory doesn't bring back muffins upon his return. Something drastic, probably.

"I've been told you're very smart for your age," Wammy says to him, crouching down so that they are roughly at level height. Ruvie remains standing.

L eyes them flatly, then smiles, quite satisfied with himself. "No one's told me anything like that about you."

Ruvie's eyebrows rise, but Wammy only grins at him. He is not as offended as L would like him to be, and he still does not like either of them. L doesn't take to strangers well, but especially not men in suits and fine wrist watches.

"There is no such thing as _smart for his age_ at my age," Wammy tells him. "You are expected to be smart when you're as old as I am, and if you're not, that's the only thing that's of note." He traces a small pattern in the dust that covers the oak floors of the back room, and it's one that L doesn't recognize. He wants to know what it is, though. He want's to _know_.

"It's my belief, however," Wammy continues, "that not everyone was meant to be smart. The world is not made up solely of libraries and laboratories. There are orchards and churches and opera houses as well, and many other things besides. It is, though, my belief that you, L - given what I've been told by your guardians - would not make a very good priest."

"Nor an opera singer," Ruvie puts in. L narrows his eyes.

"Nor an opera singer," Wammy agrees, standing up straighter and dusting off his jacket. "I run a school for gifted children who, like yourself, find themselves without the social or monetary benefits of a child with the advantage of, well… "

"Parents?" L asks, thinking the insinuation of such is interesting, so far as it is a subject that everyone else who speaks to him or of him tends to avoid. But he is an orphan, and he appreciates that Wammy doesn't skirt the subject.

"Precisely," he says, tipping his hat at L. "We have libraries and laboratories waiting for you, if you would like to use them. You are very free to remain here, if you like, with the men who have raised you these past few years, but - "

"I want to go with you," L says, before he can finish the thought. He does not dislike Father Gregory, but he does not want to be a priest. He does not want to live on this country road for the rest of his life. He was made for better things. Bigger things. "I'm smart. I'm very smart. Everyone says so."

Wammy smiles at him, as if everything is going exactly as he'd wanted it to go. L doesn't like that, but he is not going to take it back. "Good," Wammy says, "very good." Then he smiles and his eyes twinkle and it is not kindness nor cruelty, but some sort of distanced state in between, at which he rests when he says, "Then prove it."

Then he turns around and leaves, Ruvie following him, before Father Gregory can return with the tea.

 

\---

 

**nineteen years later.**

 

\---

 

"Fuck this," Mello says, "I can't do it." He's not a boy scout, and tying people up was never excessively important to the Wammy's curriculum.

Merrie Kenwood - or Wedy, as all of the identification in her wallet, now confiscated by Beyond, refers to her - remains collapsed as she'd fallen on the off-white linoleum floor, stained in B's blood, blonde hair fanned out like scant cushioning. She's pretty, with very smooth skin and a small nose and fire engine lips, but she currently looks rather more like a murder victim than not, and that has ruined most of the appeal.

The first thing he'd done when B had tasked him with tying her up was - kneeling next to her on the floor, trying to avoid the pools of dark blood - to smooth down her skirt. Anything else had seemed disrespectful.

Standing in the doorway behind him, B laughs. "Is it a moral objection or are you simply incapable?"

Back stiffening, Mello's fingers curl into fists. He'd spoken as if B had been there - as if he's always there, floating like the devil on his shoulder - but he hadn't actually expected a response, and Beyond's crackle of a voice cuts through the room uncomfortably, making his skin fizzle on his bones.

His mouth still tastes like sick. He wants a toothbrush.

"I'm _capable_ ," he snaps, voice wavering. "I just don't know how." He swallows and glances at B over his shoulder. "Methods of imprisonment don't come naturally to all of us."

He blinks for barely a second, eyes heavy and frazzled with exhaustion, and then B is close up behind him, kneeling down and reaching over his shoulders to grasp his hands in his jagged, cold fingers. Mello jerks instinctively, uncomfortable with touch in the first place, and uncomfortable with Beyond in the second, third, fourth and fifth.

"Don't - " he starts.

B chuckles, guiding Mello's hands through the knot in slow steps. "Hush little Mihael, don't say a word, Daddy's gonna _catch_ you a mockingbird," he sing-songs. "See you loop-de-loop a few times, and _then_ you pull it tight. Not before, or it won't hold."

Mello lets him finish up the tutorial - taking furious mental notes, so that this won't require a repeat performance - before shrugging him off in a hard buck of his shoulders. "Don't touch me," he says quietly. His voice feels muted by B's presence.

Beyond eases up, laughing again. "Afraid of little old me? I thought I was a savior."

Mello stands up, brushing off his hands and putting as much distance between them as possible without it looking like he's running away. "You did just get through vehemently threatening to rape a woman in front of me," he says, arms crossing. "Am I supposed to want to pal around?"

B leans in the halfway shadows of the settling evening that are gradually filling up the studio, but Mello can see his expression twist slightly, and there's a difference between his genuine amusement and the theatrical chuckling, but the two tend to overlap and crossbreed often enough that there's really no distinguishing.

"Oh come on," he says, drawing the words out as he slumps back against one of the art tables, "that was just posturing. You know how boys are." He pops his eyebrows, then gestures at Wedy with the toe of his sneaker. "It's what makes her skin crawl and her steps stumble and her insides turn out. It's her deep, dark fear: having her power taken away. Just like yours is failure and dear old Syd's is the possibility of the cessation of existence after death." He rattles it off as if he's reading lines from a book. "It's really far too easy to tell these things and then make the lot of you dance, like pretty little puppets."

"And he's the puppet master," Syd says, emerging from the back room with a length of card stock under his arm, "with his hand up all our arses."

"Ever the wordsmith, Syd, old boy," B says, grinning and jumping up out of his seat. He holds out a hand. "Keys, please."

Syd looks at him blankly, a grim humor plastered over the quivering fear underneath. "Keys to what?"

"Don't tell me you haven't got the Navara anymore," B laughs, strolling over the coat hanger to fish around in the leather pockets of Syd's discarded jacket. "It's not as if we can carry Miss Merrie bodily through the streets of London in the evening rush, can we? Aha!" With a tinny jangle, he pulls out what Mello assumes are car keys.

"I - you're not driving my car," Syd snaps. "No way, not after last time."

B giggles tauntingly, tossing the keys from one hand to the other. "Oh, and how do you intend to stop me? A bit of drunken brawling? Maybe throwing up on my shoes?"

Mello watches Syd grit his teeth. He understands the frustration, the _indignity_ , of being at the relative mercy of a man who is both criminally insane and a bit of a raging prick, and it's this strange camaraderie of victimhood that makes him speak up.

"The fact that your presence consistently inspires vomiting," Mello says, dragging a finger idly through the dust on the window ledge, "is maybe a sign of something."

"A sign that things are going just as planned," B titters, pulling Watson's coat back on and hooking his duffle bag over his shoulder. "You have everything, yes?" he asks Mello, who nods because he hasn't really got anything to have, other than his change of clothes, now freshly laundered, and the ones on his back. "And you?"

Syd looks around quite comedically, checking over his shoulder. "Me? I'm not going with you."

B's laugh is grating and more perfunctory than anything else. "You're cute. Isn't he cute, Mihael?" he asks, though mercifully doesn't give Mello time to respond. "Of course you are. The last time I let you out of my sight it ended with me getting my kneecaps shot up, and I don't fancy a repeat performance." He nods to Wedy on the floor. "There'll be more where she came from, and I doubt any of them will be half so pretty."

"Wha - " Syd starts, but his adamant expression melts resolutely off his face when he looks down at B's knees, which, while a bit sliced up, appear ultimately undamaged. He sighs, scratching his bald head with one antsy hand. "I have my equipment here. I have the printer and the materials and - "

"Bring the printer. Bring all of it," B tells him, impatiently, digging around in his pocket to pull out Wedy's phone, seemingly already distracted out of the conversation. He doesn't look back up at Syd as he says, "At the place I have in mind, there'll be plenty of room."

Mello watches Syd dig his fingers into his palms with restrained frustration - at the indignity, the helplessness, the _inhumanity_ \- but Mello's learned by now that pride isn't something you hold onto if you want to survive. You grin and you bear it and you let them say what they want, and treat you how they want, because in the end you will be the one who gets out alive, who gets what they want. _Then_ you can have your pride. Once you earn it.

As Syd nods resignedly - "Okay, okay, just give me a few minutes to pack it up," - and returns to the back room, B is preoccupied with the phone, scrolling through with a vague curiosity.

"Wammy's, Wammy's, Wammy's; oh look, an alternate Wammy's number, how quaint!" He rolls his eyes, and looks ready to toss the thing aside again, bored of it already, when he stops. "Oooh, hello, I don't know this one. Do you know this one?" He holds the screen out to Mello, who's more than half-way across the room and doesn't even have time to squint before B is turning it around again to press redial. "I guess we'll find out," he says, pressing the receiver to his ear and whistling a quaint, old tune as he waits for someone to pick up.

When you wake up you shall have all the pretty little horses. Dapples and greys, pintos and bays, all the pretty little horses.

Mello remembers the song from his childhood, from the nurse rocking him softly against her chest when he'd first come to Wammy's and caught the flu. He'd been bed-ridden and miserable for a week, and miserable for a good while after to be away from his parents. They'd been dead, of course, but he hadn't properly cared at the time. He'd wanted to go home.

It's a bit disorienting, even now, every time he remembers that he and B had grown up in the same place, not too many years apart.

Abruptly, the song stops and B grins wide, breath coming out more heavily all of a sudden, as if the curtain has been flipped up and he's got a show to put on. Someone is speaking on the other end of the line, but Mello can't make out the words and he doesn't know if he wants to. Part of him - many parts of him, including his gag reflex - just want to withdraw from this whole situation. He wants to be somewhere else. He wants to sleep. Just for a little while.

Then there's maniacal laughter, familiar to the point of routine by now, and he winces as he watches B cackle into the phone for a good half a minute, before snapping it shut.

Mello frowns. "Who was it?"

B shrugs. "Some poor sap calling dear Miss Kenwood by her fake name. Sounded European." Slipping the phone back in his pocket, he claps his hands together vigorously, as if calling a class to order. "Now, let's get this show on the road, shall we? Sometime in the next millennium, eh, Sydney?" he calls into the back, getting only a tired grunt in response, but it appears to be enough for him.

Mello pushes off the wall, hands shoving into his pockets. "So, how are we going to - " he starts, but cuts off shortly after, his question answered by the way that Beyond leans down and, in one tug of little effort, lifts Merrie Kenwood up in his arms and carries her, bridal style, to the door, setting her body down on a chair and skipping outside.

"I'll bring the car around," he calls back over his shoulder. "I won't be a minute! Look sharp, Mihael, we're just getting started."

That, Mello thinks, is what he is afraid of.

 

\---

 

When Light wakes, L is asleep, which is a notable occurrence in that he can count on one hand the number of times it's happened since the imprisonment.

_Imprisonment_. It's such a nasty word and, besides, not a factually accurate descriptor for the situation. The connotations of such a word may apply - chains, abandoned building, limited bodily freedom, violent sex - but at the actual root of it all, it doesn't quite fit. There is not a word in Japanese, or in any language he knows, to properly describe what they have gotten themselves into, and how they have gotten themselves into it.

_Love_ is just as ultimately inapplicable. All the connotations are there - the evidence of love, all the paperback romance novel trappings - but none of the same substance. Love feels too cheap. Too common. Anyone can be in love. Light is not just anyone, and L is not anyone at all.

When he'd said it in the night, parts of him had skipped beats, had broken open and leaked on the ground, and he'd had to shove it all back in and spackle himself shut. _Good to know_. But is it good? Does he want to hear it? The lie, chasing the truth, catching the lie and wrapping it up - he doesn't have the energy to keep it all straight. Does saying it cancel it out? Is it better off cancelled, anyway?

_Sometimes I want to pretend the only thing that's ever happened to me is you._

It's not pretty, the insides, and he can't lay them flat and examine them. Not now. Not with everything spinning, all up in the air.

They're not pretty now. Light's skin is slick, sticking to the floor with blood and semen and whatever else, the endless carnage of romance. L looks like a fallen idol, torn and bruised and split open. Emptied. Light is hollowing him out to make room for himself, but does he even want a thing that's hollow? Does he even want a thing that loves him?

In the night he'd been tired - of himself, of his world, of the puzzle pieces all fluctuating out of sync - but this morning he wakes energized, fire renewed, the urge to destroy and rebuild lit brightly in him.

He wants to fuck L again. He wants to fuck him while he's asleep. He wants him to wake conquered, swallowed, helpless to do anything but what Light asks of him. Eager to give everything. He'd been eager last night, but comparatively, so had Light. Both of them itching to surrender to the other, but - like the winning race horse that he is - L had come out on top. Or, as it goes, on bottom. He'd given himself over like it had been a victory.

Light can't decide who has the power now and who doesn't, and if - in their relationship - there is any power left to be had. 

He sits up, careful not to wake L. He doesn't have the faculties to participate in a particularly meaningful conversation at this point, and loathes to have any other kind. He disentangles himself carefully, stinging with the peel of flesh away from flesh, and L sleeps heavily enough that Light's slight stumble as he stands up doesn't instigate anything but a huff of unconscious breath and a roll against the wall.

Blearily, he checks his phone, listening to a voicemail from his mother, who's suggesting he come home for the weekend, as his apartment is, _"probably quite lonely,"_ right now, and rolling his eyes at a text from Sayu that suggests that they, _'hang out and talk about boys.'_

He doesn't respond to any of it - it's too early in the morning for him to play house - moving instead to the public office restroom, with its cold tap water and its humming hand-dryers, and cleans himself up. He considers doing the same for L, but decides to have coffee and a brisk morning walk before he starts in on that particular game.

At the front of the building he unhooks the key from where it hangs on the wall, easily accessible to anyone in the building who isn't handcuffed to an air conditioning unit, and locks the door behind him. Although the buses are running and he could take one to the nearby shops, he prefers to go it on foot, and it doesn't take very long with his sturdy pace.

It's standing in line for coffee at the mini-mart, behind an elderly woman who's squinting at the cigarette shelf and in front of an antsy gang-banger who keeps heckling his phone, that Light sees the headline, in large black Kanji against the dull grey newspaper, in the dull grey shop.

Three More Children Attacked in the Night, Police Say.

Apologizing as he ducks around the woman who's finally settled on Camel, he pulls the paper from the rack, eyes scanning the article, which supplies little information - rushed this morning as it undoubtedly was - aside from that which points, with little margin for error, to the same culprit who's been raping and killing children this past month. Two girls and one boy this time. Three children in one night. That - that's a lot. That's too many. Not only is it unrealistic, given the distance between each house from which they were taken, it's excessive. This guy is tempting fate. This guy is taunting God.

This guy is asking for Kira. Light would be remiss to deny him.

He needs to solve this case, he needs to get L on it and he needs to divert the investigation team from Kira long enough to sort this out, without drawing any connection between the culprit's impending death and the time at which they find him. It will need to be public knowledge before he can act, which will be difficult. He can barely contain himself from scribbling on his pages now, and he doesn't even know the name. But the urge is there, the _need _. Judgement. _Justice_. He is going to -__

__His phone rings and, quickly purchasing his coffee and the paper, he steps out of the shop to take it, composing himself in a half-second._ _

__"Hello? Dad?"_ _

__"Light," his father says, tense and twitching on the phone, the way he always is these days, "you're up. Good, I - we need you down at headquarters. There's been a development. The Shinigami has been seen again."_ _

__Light's jaw locks up and he has to physically force it to open again, feigning the perfect blend of shock, confusion, and excitement. "You're kidding! I'll be right there," he says, before snapping his phone shut._ _

__He doesn't care if he has to use love or his Note or his bare hands, he is going to _fucking kill Rem_._ _

__He vaguely considers going back to give L the update, and maybe a good morning kiss and a mess of spoken mysteries to keep him busy through-out the day, but ultimately decides it would take too much time and more emotion than he currently has the capacity for, and instead hops a train straight back to the city center._ _

__

__\---_ _

__

__It looks, if Mello had give it a proper descriptor, like a nest._ _

__It's one of several squatter apartments all down the block, but this one is padlocked and B spends a good few minutes digging in the dusty dirt of a dead potted plant for the key. Inside, the electricity works even though it shouldn't - "I just reconnected the line," B says, "no big deal; anyone with an electrician's license could do it," - and the floors are spread with neatly filed piles of everything from books to musical instruments to glassware to old photographs and other people's mail. There is a gramophone and a toolbox and an open book of souffle recipes and… what looks like a human bone. Everything, though neatly lined up, is covered in a thick layer of dust, like a disused room of an old manor house that hasn't seen light in years._ _

__The place has a strangely haunting quality to it, as if they've stepped out of busy London and into somewhere foreign and quiet, although the illusion is shortly broke by a honk from outside the barred windows._ _

__Beyond sets Merrie carelessly down on one of several mattresses that line the floor, peeking out the window quickly before drawing the blinds and mumbling about, "keeping out the riffraff," with a wink to Mello. There is no other furniture in the room, but there are enough objects to make it an adventure to avoid knocking into things as Mello steps around the piles and stacks, vision almost completely blocked by the giant box of supplies that Syd is having him carry inside._ _

__The man himself is taking up rear and having quite a difficult time of it, lugging the printer into the room in his short, twitching arms. Immediately, he knocks over two stacks of books, including several travel guides for _London, 1999_ , which means - aside from the fact that B is a terrible packrat - he's had this place for five years, at the very least._ _

__"Do you live here?" he asks, looking around, because - despite _homey_ being the last thing he'd call it - if B had to live anywhere, this place fits the bill pretty nicely._ _

__B shrugs slightly, twirling like an underpaid showman. "Technically, I live in a California state prison - although currently I'm on holiday. But, back in the day - after Wammy's, but before the whole convicted felon thing - when I did a bit more traveling, this is where I would always stay when I was in London. Aside, of course," he says, shooting a conspiratorial grin at Syd, "from a couple months around the turn of the century."_ _

__Syd, if he notices, doesn't give any indication of it. "Makes my place look like The Ritz," is all he says, grunting to set down the printer with a look of comically exaggerated relief._ _

__Ducking around him and leaning past Mello, B roots through a pile of seemingly miscellaneous junk, emerging a few moments later with a finely-edged knife. It is spotlessly clean._ _

__Something in Mello's stomach drops immediately and he's uprooted out of the lying calm he's tricked himself into on the way here. Back in the truck, with B and Syd taking cheap shots at each other and the radio flipping from static-filled classic rock station to static-filled classic rock station, it had felt almost like this could have been any late-night trip to any place that people go in the late night, and even with an unconscious woman sprawled across his lap, Mello had managed to get himself breathing again. Not so anymore. His heart rattles around behind his rib cage and he wants to go back to Syd's, back to the lumpy sofa and sharp smell of ink, and just close his eyes._ _

__There's blood on the floor there, though, just like there will be blood here soon. He doesn't want anymore blood. Can't they go a few hours without blood?_ _

__"What are you going to do with that?" he asks B, trying to swallow down his unease. It's really not hard to figure out, with the way he's whistling over to Merrie's body, but he asks anyway._ _

__Beyond rolls his eyes. "I'm going to slice her up some Wonderbread. What do you think, princess?"_ _

__The indignation that rises up in Mello, mixing with the already present fear and exhaustion, is possibly conjured by the demeaning nickname, and possibly just at the condescending way that B's speaking to him, used to it as he should surely be by now._ _

__"Wonderbread comes already sliced," Syd puts in._ _

__"Hush up, Sydney," B shoots back, "and get started already, will you? I want to be out of this city as soon as possible, if it's all the same to you." He nods to the far corner of the room. "Outlet's over there. Be a doll and try not to electrocute yourself."_ _

__With his teeth grit, whatever reply he's clearly itching to let loose choked back behind them, Syd turns in the direction indicated, moving with the sort of dejection that Mello himself has oftentimes felt when faced with B and his ridiculous orders and his shining, smiling teeth. So, given his obvious acceptance of the task, it doesn't quite follow when Syd freezes, body going sharp and harshly lined as he stares at one of the piles in front of him._ _

__"You - " he says, voice blank and emotionless, before suddenly snapping into anger. "Is that - _that's Sadie!"_ _ _

__Mello looks around. He doesn't see anyone who wasn't in the room beforehand, but he's suddenly on guard anyway. Sadie? Isn't that -_ _

__B glances over, eyelids drooping with disinterest. "Oh, yes," he says, glancing at the line of white bone resting in the center of the room, "my keepsake. Forgot about that."_ _

__Syd's dead girlfriend._ _

__There's a flash of shadowed movement. Before Mello blinks, Syd is reaching for the bone - which looks like it might be a tibia, yellowed-white and completely clean of any muscle or blood, just sitting there next to a couple of clarinets. After he opens his eyes again, B is across the room, yanking the thing out of Syd's reach before he can even make contact._ _

__"Ah, ah, ah," he teases, waving it somewhat crudely, like Syd's a child being denied a favorite toy, "it's mine. You wouldn't accept my kind offer, so I claimed it."_ _

__The look of outrage and disgust that blooms on Syd's face isn't, to Mello's mind, an overreaction. He _stole_ Syd's girlfriend's leg bone? No fucking wonder they don't get on. Mello wouldn't be so hot on that, either, all told._ _

__"Listen, you sick fuck," Syd starts, face turning an airy red color, eyes watery and strange and sharp, absent of any the usual deprecating humor he tends to use to combat B's tittering malice._ _

__"Look, how about this?" B interrupts, and if he senses the sudden ache in Syd's presence, he doesn't seem to think much of it. "You be a good boy while Mihael and I take the lady down to the basement level and get started on the questioning, and don't run away even a little, and I'll let you have your lost limb once you finish the passports." He waves the thing in question around like a baton in some kind of showgirl act, grin twitching, though not purposefully cruel. "Deal?"_ _

__Syd looks as if he loathes nothing more than the idea of caving to B's demands, but his self-preservation instinct is - quite obviously - much more dominant than his pride, and eventually his body relaxes back into its usual humored slump._ _

__"Fine," he says, "whatever."_ _

__B pulls the bone agains this chest, stroking it like a long lost love. "Then you can take it home and do whatever you want to it."_ _

__"I'm taking it back to her grave, you bastard," Syd says, but it's more quiet than a true insult would warrant, and it seems Syd has returned to his usual root of defeatism, if less jubilantly so than before. "Back to where it belongs._ _

__"How darling," B sing-songs. "I'm sure you two will live happily ever after. Maybe you can close your eyes and move very slowly and it will be be just like she's alive. Well, no, it'll be colder and rougher and probably covered in insect life, but the heart wants what the heart wants, and once your engines are revving, well… " He lifts his eyebrows, hips canting upward in a game of obscene charades that makes Syd's fists ball up again, and of course that's what B wants, what makes his monster of a mind light up._ _

__He's playing. Puppets and hands up arses and all that, and even with work to be done, B just can't let anybody's strings go up-plucked._ _

__Mello just rolls his eyes, more disturbed by his lack of disturbance than by the necrophiliac implications. "Can you, like, stop that?" he says to B, arms crossing close over his chest. "Fucking with him is just going to slow down his progress."_ _

__"Aren't you a little knight in shining leather?" B says dreamily, folding his hands into a pose of schoolgirl wonder, before popping quickly into the stance of a toy solider. "But yes, yes, we've got to get started, anyway. There's a long night ahead of us." He salutes Syd with the bone - who only slumps down next to his box of supplies, valiantly succeeding in keeping calm - and then continues his march towards the door, nodding Mello along after him._ _

__Mello stays frigid and still where he is. "Do I have to come?" he asks, trying his damnedest not to feel like a misbehaving child under Beyond's uneven glance. "I don't know very much about torture, and I don't think I want to learn."_ _

__As if that could erase the guilt and wobbling sickness that rushes up in his stomach every other moment, only to crash back down into a strained sort of calm. As if not watching it will lessen its reality. As if. No, it's for his own sake. He is selfish. His stomach is not that strong, not the mention the wading infrastructure of his sanity these days, and the already creeping desensitivity to pain and death and the blizzard of a man before him, who's leaning down to pull Merrie Kenwood's limp, pale body back up into his equally limp, pale arms._ _

__"Oh, come on, it's healthy to expand your horizons!" He grins over the jut of her shoulder, kicking the door wide and moving out in the wasteland of deep blue shadows lining the hallway. "Besides, I need someone to hold the gun and keep her in check," he calls back over his shoulder, "and my hands will be busy busy _busy_."_ _

__Sparing Syd a last glance, Mello follows B out into the hall without quite meaning to, and decides - as they move past the unserviceable elevator to the stairwell entrance - that he'll go not to participate, so much as to oversee. Not that he really thinks that he could stop B doing anything even if he tried, but at the very least he can kick up quite a shit-fit about it._ _

__"Do you - can't we just talk to her?" he tries, holding the door open to B, who nods his thanks, curiously well-mannered for a moment there. "You know, no knives or guns involved?"_ _

__Beyond whistles through his teeth and shakes his head, as they move down through the cavernous dark. The power appears to be out still in this part of the building, shadows fluttering with indefinite intention, reshaping the world around them into the golden glint of Merrie's hair and the sound of B's spiky breaths._ _

__"If only it were so simple," he hums, sounding as if he wishes for anything but. "Alas, she's a Wammy's-employed professional. If she was likely to give up information easily, she wouldn't have this job. I'm only going to do what, by the grace of god and his wild packs of angels, I have to do to find out what's happened to L. It's a circumstantial imperative," B says, lips smacking with evident satisfaction around the words, "that things will get a little messy." He swings his mass of wild hair around to grin back at Mello, face stretched into indistinct patterns, but Mello can see - and recognizes - the whites of his eyes glinting in the low light._ _

__"But don't worry," B continues, adjusting his grip on Merrie slightly as they reach the bottom of the stairs, "for your sake, I'll try not to have too much fun."_ _

__

__\---_ _

__

__Wedy wakes bleeding. Wedy wakes gasping. Wedy wakes and she doesn't have enough energy in her to properly hate, so she just rolls with the tides of pain, moving in and out of reach with particular pattern or bodily intent, just twitching fires and icy blades and the boy with the blue eyes wavering in front of her. He doesn't know how to use that gun in his hands. He doesn't know what he's doing here at all. If anything is her ticket out of the place, it's him._ _

__Except it gets harder to stay quiet, to think in straight lines, to keep the pleas from rushing out of her mouth like bile. And her vows turn indecipherable in her head and her pride goes wet and ungraspable and after what must be several hours in this hell-hole - dark room, bright flame, laughing eyes - she chokes out two words that might be able to save her._ _

__Two words that, in her frazzled mind, she thinks might be able to save everybody:_ _

___"Light Yagami."_ _ _

__

__\---_ _

__**tbc.** _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the flashforward at the end of chapter 17 fits in between the last two scenes of this chapter, just in case anyone doesn't remember it, as it's been a while. and hey, sex, huh! there haven't been many sex scenes in a while as there's a lot going on plot-wise and so much has to happen in such little time that meaningless romps can't really be afforded, but this one was important, i think, in setting up some narrative stuff so i went with it.
> 
> i hope this chapter didn't disappoint after such a long wait, and i promise that the next one is actually going to deliver some action for once. (in this fic? impossible!) anyway, thank you all for sticking with me - and for those who are losing interest in the story or who bemoan the lack of lxlight lately, i completely understand and it's okay with me. i mean, i'd like for as many people to enjoy it as possible, but i know some of the stuff i'm doing is not going to be everyone's cuppa. ultimately, i have to write for myself, or else it's a bit's meaningless, isn't it?
> 
> anyway, thank you all so much for reading and i'd really appreciate any reviews possible, and will try my best to get back to them this time. much love to you all!


	21. monsters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello i'm jaye and welcome to thunderdome!
> 
> no i'm kidding it's just 'nights.' thanks everybody who reviewed last time! i appreciate it so so much i can't verbalize and won't try because that will end badly, but just. thanks. this time around i've got a very long chapter with a lot more happening in it than usually happens, so that's something? not sure if it works because i was very satisfied with it when i wrote it and very unsatisfied when editing (such is life) so who knows! i just hope you all enjoy as much as you possibly can and thank you for reading!

''You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.''  
\- Charles Bukowski, Too Sensitive

\---

 

"Light Yagami," B repeats back, hands stilling, head cocking like a puzzled labrador. Abruptly, he steps away from Merrie's body, picking up a wet rag and wiping his hands, brow furrowed. "Spell it. And the Kanji? It sounds Japanese. What's the Kanji?"

Merrie blinks up at him, doe eyes hazy with pain, body twitching in its bonds. "I can't - "

"You _can_ ," B insists.

Mello's hands waver, the gun shivering in his palm. He wonders if Merrie can tell he barely knows how to use it.

"I'd have to write it," she breathes out, swallowing down a grunt of pain. "And I can't - "

Before she even completes the sentiment, B is across the room, bending around her to loosen the knots at her back, freeing one hand just as he jerks sharply on the other. "Lefty or a righty?" She must give some sort of indication, because he's tugging out her right wrist, tucking the other back in like a toy he's not as keen to play with, and producing a ball-point pen from nowhere conceivable.

Casually, he holds out the back of his hand to her, a clean white canvas, stained only by blue tinted veins and ridges of bone jutting beneath the skin. Mello watches as, slowly, she traces out a series of characters across his flesh, running slightly out of space and moving onto the wrist.

B shoots him a glance over his shoulder, ducking his head with sheepish pleasure. "Tickles."

Then, more suddenly than expected - but certainly not wholly unexpectedly - Merrie jerks Beyond forward by the wrist, giving one violent tug and then leaning up to head-butt him frantically. Her movements are speedy, but almost staggered, and if it weren't for the blood loss and pain-induced nausea, she might have had a fighting chance. She's certainly holding up better than Bert had, but then he's dead and heartless now, so it's not all that much of an accomplishment.

Slipping closer in on her, wily and serpent-limbed, B regains his balance and jerks her hand behind her back again to tie it to the other. Maybe it's to throw her off long enough to get her wrists secured or maybe it's just because he's a bit of a fiend, but Beyond leans in and kisses her squarely on the mouth, sinking in on her like some sort of hungry ghost.

Mello feels his face heating up a bit, but it's more in indignation than embarrassment, likely. "Hey!" he says, waving his gun in what he hopes is a sufficiently commanding manner, though neither of them are looking his way. "None of that! You said you wouldn't…" Mello doesn't want to say it.

He doesn't want to say to Merrie Kenwood, _I'm fine with being an accomplice to torture, but rape is where I draw the line._ It seems even more shameful to differentiate that way. If you're in an inch, you're in a mile - but, but he doesn't want that. If he's going to be playing Bonnie and Clyde with B all the way to Tokyo, he's going to have to stop him somewhere.

"Relax," B breathes wheezily over his shoulder, once he pulls away. His eyes are alight with amusement and when he jolts an eyebrow at Mello, it makes him feel a little sick. "I'm just playing tit-for-tat. If Little Miss wants to pull me close, she better be prepared to have me close. All under the skin." He trails a finger up Merrie's chin, the way one would pet a cat, and she spits at him, breathing heavily with disgust.

At least she looks more cognizant than she had.

"You had to know I'd at least try," she says, and there's a keen dip of resignation in her voice, tone gone less refined and more dirty American.

"Oh, I'd hoped," B giggles, glancing down to scan the words written on his hand. "I have to go look into this," he mumbles, bulging his eyes a little for what Mello assumes is effect. Snapping his glance up to him, B instructs, "Clean her wounds and bandage them. You know how, right? And get her something for the pain."

"How do you know we got the information we wanted?" Mello speaks before he can stop himself, and then quite immediately wishes he hadn't. No more torture, please, please. His hand is cramping up from holding the gun - even down at his side as it is now - and if he's done anything to start the horror-show up again, he's not going to forgive himself.

B, however, looks like he's given up the idea altogether. "I know," he says, finger tracing the pen marks with a strange delicacy. Abruptly, he turns on his heel, not looking over his shoulder as he calls back, "Don't try any funny business with the boy," and disappears up the stairs.

 

\---

 

Aiber scrolls through every angle available, eyes scanning down every street that Tokyo's traffic and security cameras can possibly reach and sifting through at a speed faster than he can process most of the information. He sees two instances of shoplifting, four obscene displays in back alleys and on porches, and an immeasurable amount of traffic violations - but, alas, no Yagami. Or at least, no destination.

Light shows up at the train station in Ikebukuro around 8 AM, presumably taking the line to the closest stop to headquarters, but where he comes from, Aiber can't figure out. The less densely populated the area, the lower the amount of cameras, and where Yagami is stashing L must be virtually deserted, because no matter how many times he scrolls back, following the obvious flag of his ridiculously colored hair - the sorest of thumbs in the uniformity of most of Tokyo's citizens - he can't find where he'd come from or where, when heading out last night on the late train, he'd ended up.

He's obviously taken measures against being tracked this way, and the only thing Aiber can think of to circumvent them is to follow him in person, but -

"No," Watari says, stolidly, "you're not trained for this sort of thing, and L's orders for me were not to leave my post, unless - "

"Unless there's a body," Aiber snaps. He knows the whole spiel. "Except how are we ever going to find a body if we just stay cooped up in our comfy ivory tower. Do you think Kira's gonna mail us a corpse? Maybe send along a greeting card?"

"I thought you believed that L was still alive?" Watari asks, scrolling through his own camera feed at his usual leisurely pace - and yet he seems to inevitably spot twice as much as Aiber does, and keep twice as much as that to himself, besides.

Aiber rolls his eyes. "Yeah, well, there's no way we'll find out one way or the other if we just sit around with our thumbs up our asses, counting the days until Yagami decides to off us." He breathes out, air feeling heavy and coagulated in his lungs. He needs to sleep. His head is pounding and when he closes his eyes he sees static. He needs a drink. He's been up all night, but he'll have to give the whole Shinigami blow-by-blow to the rest of the team once Yagami gets here, so what he needs is a drink.

In his usual manner of understated over-competence, Watari stands and pours Aiber a quarter-finger of Scotch, as if on instinct, handing it off like the stately old butler that he pretends so convincingly to be.

Sheerly out of childish impudence, Aiber would like to refuse, but his head pounds again and then the glass is cold in his hands and the alcohol is harsh in his throat.

"Look," he says, after one full swallow, "don't think I discount you or L or your expertise. I'm sure you have a plan and it's brilliant and it'll blow us all straight out of the water, but until then, you've got to give me something to go on, you know?"

Watari continues monitoring the perimeter, eyes not straying from the screen, but something in him seems to sigh and creak and it's only in the odd moments, like this, that Aiber remembers just how old he is.

"I have someone on it," he says, voice only barely audible. "I have faith that this person will arrive any day now. Should they, by the end of the month, have still not shown up and done what needs to be done, then we will take other measures." He tips his own mug up to his withered lips, taking a sip of what Aiber only assumes is tea, but could just as well be Jack and Coke for all he knows. "Until then, please hold your ground. And, if you can possibly help it - "

Aiber nods, knowing where this is going, as he always does, and continues Watari's warning for him: "Don't do anything stupid. Yeah, yeah," he sighs, taking another sip, "I'll give it my all."

That's only 11 days. L had disappeared on the last day of October. It's now November 19th, with no indication either way as to his location or his being alive, other than Yagami's nightly trips downtown, and Aiber is eager. Too eager. Unevenly eager. He should wait. He should just listen to Watari, and wait.

Resigning himself to his very dull and antsy fate for near on the next two weeks, he turns to Watari and says, for what feels like the tenth time in the last hour, "Okay, but can't you at least tell me about Beyond Birthday?"

Watari, predictably, does not do any such thing.

 

\---

 

Syd isn't answering his phone, and the spare apartment key under his worn-out welcome mat leads to nothing but a dim haze of sun-specked dust and week old take away boxes in the fridge. There's no one home, and doesn't look like there has been for days, despite Edmund having seen him yesterday. There's been no sign of the woman with the slit in her skirt. _Wedy_ is the name printed on the card that he fishes out of his pocket every few minutes, re-dialing the number printed there.

Again, no answer.

He goes down to the tattoo shop, but that he doesn't have any legal way into, and as he's already going to be late for work, he doesn't fancy arriving in cuffs after breaking and entering. Peering in the window with little shame, as this is a part of town where loitering doesn't even register on the crime-scale, all he can really surmise from his limited view is that the place is far, far cleaner than he usually finds it. Granted, he hasn't been by in a few months, so maybe sobriety - if Syd's truly managed it - has turned around more than a few things.

On the other hand, maybe his cousin's been murdered by a fairytale psycho and Edmund's let it happen because he'd bee too stuffy and pig-headed to believe him when he'd needed him to.

Most likely, though, it's all gone fine and Syd will be in tomorrow with another tall tale and liquor on his breath. Here's hoping.

He doesn't bother to grab breakfast as he hops the underground quick as he can to the station, tossing his jacket over his chair before anyone can think to miss him and rooting around through the files that had been requested by the second floor. A very harassed woman comes in to report a missing child half an hour later, only to be called quickly away by the supermarket down the street having found him playing hide-and-seek in the juice aisle.

After that, it's a series of relatively minor complaints, as it always is, but he takes them with trembling efficiency, pushing out any thoughts of Syd and Ms. Wedy and the storybook villain with the ridiculous name that they're after.

Setting his attention on the next person in line, he has to slant his eyes downward a bit to meet those of a spotty teenager in black and white whose hand is playing nervously with the paper he has clutched in it.

"Hello, how can I help you today?" Edmund asks, with routine accommodation.

The kid twitches slightly, as if shocked at being addressed, but nods quickly, unfolding a rough but very decent sketch of what looks like a young girl - or boy, perhaps - with a sharp bob of light hair and a rather poisonous expression. "Have you seen this boy?" he asks. "He'd be a bit older by now and maybe… angrier. He's run away."

"He doesn't look familiar," Edmund says, placatingly, "but if you'd like to leave the sketch with me, and maybe have his parents come in to file a case report, if they haven't already done." He reaches out for the piece of paper, but the boy jerks it out of his reach

"No," he says, quickly, rubbing a smudged hand against his smudged nose and stepping back, "thank you. I just thought I'd try here first."

Edmund's eyebrows lift and he means to prevail upon him to _please_ find an adult to help him with his search, but the man next in line is already eagerly detailing his neighbor's building code violations, and by the time Edmund looks again, the boy is already gone, red hair disappearing into the vibrant, multi-colored crowd on the London streets.

 

\---

 

"Have you seen Rem?"

Her voice pops like bubblegum in his ear as he ducks through the early morning rush on his way to headquarters, and it's far too early for this, and they'd slept together _far too recently_ , besides. Light is never keen to speak to Misa, but now, of all times, he feels more disinclined than ever.

"Don't just say her name in casual conversation," he snaps, coming around the corner. He's about two blocks from his destination, and he intends to take them quickly, in order to end this conversation as swiftly as possible. "Try to be at least slightly discreet."

He would have liked not to have picked up, but the tiny pin-prick of worry, of _what if it's about Kira?_ had grown and grown, and by the second ring he'd been forcing himself into a strained greeting. Now, he mostly wishes he'd thrown caution to the wind and let it go to voicemail.

"What? But no one's around, right?" There's a rough sound, and the a squeak of discomfort as she shifts again, creating a rushing static on the line. "It's too early for you to be at work already."

"Change of plans," Light grits. "I got called in preemptively, and speaking of, no, I haven't seen Rem, but _someone_ has. That's what the emergency meeting is about. Your pet god has gotten herself spotted by one of the investigators."

"Huh?" Misa says, and her shock is overdramatized, but not falsified, he thinks. Not anymore than anything she is and does. "But I thought she was with L."

"She was, but she left when I got there, and she hadn't returned - as far as I could tell - by the time I woke up this morning. I'd figured she'd spent the night with you, but then I got the call." Scratching at his skin irritably with one hand, Light slows his steps a little, suddenly less keen to be at headquarters.

Misa gives a little squeak of what Light supposes is meant to be some tragic emotion, and says, "She was supposed to walk me to my shoot this morning, since it's not in the best part of town and she likes to make sure that nothing happens to me. She's super sweet to me that way! But, uh, she's not here and I have to leave soon. I thought maybe - "

"Well, you thought wrong. I don't know what's going on right now, but I'm guessing she has something to do with it and… " He pauses in front of the building, just outside the reach of the security cameras, lifting his fingers to pinch the bridge of his nose. _Shit_. "L. Goddammit, I bet he's manipulated her into doing something for him, something to get us found out." He grits his teeth. Shit shit _shit_.

"No way! Rem would never take his orders," Misa squeals with wavering indignation.

"You'd be surprised at what he can get people to do," Light says. He hopes it hurts. He hopes she understands the implication and he hopes it fucking _wounds_ her, because if sticking around to play house with her last night had given L ample opportunity to manipulate Rem into doing his dirty work, she is going to _pay_.

Or L is. Or Aiber. Someone is taking the blame for this, anyway, and it's not going to be Light.

He says his clipped goodbyes and snaps the phone shut, setting his facial expression pleasantly flat - if doused in a hint of worry and confusion - then rushes into the line of the camera's sight, making like he'd given it his all to get here as quickly as possible.

 

\---

 

Mello thought he'd have to staunch the bleeding, but it's already clotting in most places, B's cuts are too shallow to do any lasting damage. To hurt had been the intention, not to kill, which is at least comforting in how it differs from the encounter with Bert. That, it seems, had been a pleasure kill. This is business.

Or maybe, Mello thinks, as he dabs awkwardly at the cuts along Merrie's hipbones, her numbers just aren't up yet.

It's only after he's left and returned with a bottle of port - no glasses, as he couldn't find any that weren't dust-coated or otherwise filled with some unpleasant, unidentifiable substance - and lifted several sips to her dry lips, that she speaks.

"So, what's a boy like you doing in a place like this?" she sighs, head-lolling back against the pillar she's tied to, eyes misting slightly. There's alcohol dripping down the side of her mouth and Mello can't decide if it would be more polite or impolite to lean in and wipe it away.

"I… " he starts, trailing off to kneel back down and check on her wounds, "I'm doing the same thing you are: looking for someone."

She coughs, throat struggling over her words. "And you think that fucker's going to help you find him?" She nods at the stairs, dimly lit now that B had managed to wire in the auxiliary lights.

He shrugs. "I have a better chance with him than I do by myself."

Merrie's laugh is unduly loud, harsh and hushed as it is, in the vast echo of the room. "Oh baby," she coos, with a loose, wind-swept quality to her tone, "you're gonna get yourself so very killed."

And the uneasy thing is, he knows she's probably right. He knows that B has, for some reason, decided he might be useful at one point or another, but the guard-dog act can only go on so long and Mello's not going to kid himself that they're - that they're _friends_ or something. You can't get on with somebody like that. He's not even sure B can feel affection, or if he's just faking it like everything else. Temporary team or not, Mello is on his own, and he knows it.

And yeah, maybe he can't protect himself. Maybe, without B's blessing, he'll get torn apart by this case - maybe B will do the tearing himself - but Mello doesn't altogether care. He's decided not to care. Cliche of all cliches, but he's either going to find L, or he's going to die trying. Anything less and he'll - he'll be nothing. He'll have nothing. He's not coming in second again.

He'd left Wammy's because he'd known, game set the way it was, that Near wold win. He would be chosen. He would prove the better option. Mello doesn't blame anyone, really - classroom scores compared, he could never beat Near. But out in the real world, unused to it and stumblingly fragile as he is, this can be his arena. Near can't play here. This is where _real_ cases gets solved, where _real_ work gets done. This is where L is.

He stands up, rubbing at his arms, backing quickly away from Merrie. He feels sick suddenly. Looking away, he says, "I don't have anywhere else to go. I don't have anything else to do. This is my life's purpose." He looks up again, almost shyly, but swallows it down. "I'm sorry you had to suffer for it. I'm sorry if you have to suffer more. If he - I'm sorry." Strangely, his hand twitches slightly, the long-buried urge to make the sign of the cross rising up in him quite suddenly. "I'll try my best to make sure he doesn't kill you, but - but this is the only way."

"I appreciate the sentiment," Merrie says, snorting like she doesn't, "painfully naive as it is." Throat clicking strangely, she nods by the bottle at his feet. "Another."

He takes the insult and packs it away, feeling too guilty about her predicament to take any great offense, and lifts another gulp of Port to her lips, which she swallows down easily, rigged muscles easing with every drop. When he pulls the bottle back, she breathes for a moment, then regards him with a slightly more focused glance, and says the thing he's so very afraid of saying to himself.

"And what if L's dead?"

Turning around, he gathers up the excess bandages in his hand, teeth gritting as a stream of _I know I know I know_ runs through his head, but he can't let it take over, so he breathes in, out - once, twice, again, again - until he can get a hold on himself. Then he turns back to her and says, "But what if he's not?"

And there's the other side of the coin, the glint of hope that peeks in between the window slats on early mornings. The ringing joking lying _truth_ that he sees in B's eyes. There it is.

Merrie Kenwood looks him up in down, and laughs it off, shucking away his truth like loose skin.

"In that case," she says, "it means that he and Kira are playing their reindeer games and the rest of us aren't invited." She looks Mello in the eyes, sharply lucid, despite the pain and alcohol. "L doesn't get himself captured, and he certainly doesn't stay captured, without ulterior motives. I choose to believe he's dead, because the alternative is that he's dicking around with his Ken-doll boyfriend, who's - in the meantime - killing off anybody who doesn't make it onto his Noah's Arc with a spotless record, aka _me and mine_. I'd like to give L enough credit to say that he wouldn't do that, but - "

Creaking in from the floor above, B rounds down the staircase, open laptop balanced in his hand and chewing on the inside of his cheek with perturbing amusement.

" _But_ ," he continues for Merrie, "if you really knew him, you wouldn't. Now, what's this about a boyfriend?" He skips down the last few steps, tapping out an uneven rhythm with his boots, and Mello's glad B had asked that question, so that he doesn't have to.

Before Merrie can answer, though, Beyond's setting the laptop down on one of the loose basements crates, and scrolling through some sort of database. Abruptly, his eyebrows pop up, and he brings one dull finger to his lips. "Oh, he's pretty," he murmurs, staring at the screen. "He's very pretty. That's no good."

Merrie's expression is loose, rolling with the alcohol, but she still seems to, laughingly, understand something about the situation that Mello doesn't. "And clever, too," she says. "Genius IQ. The whole package."

"Well. That's annoying." B tilts his head to the side, letting his ratty hair fall in loose strands, across his eyes. "I'll have good fun tearing him into little tiny bits."

"I suppose that's one solution to the Kira case," Merrie snorts.

Mello feels awkward and slow, trailing behind them intellectually - but it's not his fault when he's not been given any proper information. "Wait, Kira case?" he asks, looking between the two of them. So Yagami is somehow related to Kira? And… pretty, also, he supposes. He crosses his arms, not liking the implications, nor the look that B's giving him. "I'm still, uh, stuck on _boyfriend_."

Beyond rolls his eyes, and there's a queer fondness in the movement that Mello chooses to ignore in favor of remaining still and uncomfortable. "Hush, Mihael," he says, "and cover your virgin ears, the big kids are talking." Rounding closer in on Merrie, he abandons his laptop to lean the sharp jut of his chin on one dreamy palm. "I like you," he says to her. "You're much more useful than he's been - "

"Hey!" Mello snaps. B needs him. He's - he'd helped with Syd and… B needs him. For some reason that Mello hasn't quite figured out yet, B decided it'd be a better idea to take him on the road than it would be to kill him in Watson's apartment. He'd tracked him down, in fact. If he's meant to be doing something that he hasn't been doing, Beyond ought to tell him that upfront.

Instead, he shoots a winning, killing smile Mello's way, then flits his glance back to Merrie. "And," he continues, "you held out for a good while. I respect that."

There's a lucidity in B's eyes, deep black and rocking sea-like in the dim, that Mello immediately distrusts. Not that there's a bit about Beyond that he particularly trusts, but this is just… he's playing. He's playing with his food. He just hopes, for her sake, Merrie doesn't buy into it.

"That's funny," she says, chapped lips forming a mirroring smile, corner tilting up to crinkle the rest of her expression, "because I don't have a bit of fucking respect for you."

Mello can't quite help his own glinting amusement. B's expression flickers a little, but then the mask is back on, twice as locked to the skin. "Oh?" he says, voice dipping so high and pleasant it's like a crack through glass. "Is that so?"

"You sick, pathetic bastard," Merrie spits, strands of her hair dripping unwashed across her cheeks. There's a hazy, relieved expression tilting in her eyes, and it's one Mello recognizes. The absence of pain, where pain has been; or at least _lessened suffering_. "You're not the monster in the dark, are you?" she laughs, asking without asking, eyes flicking to the open laptop, then up and down B's body. "Just another love-lorn suitor who's taken the whole get-up a little too far, huh?"

On most levels, Mello doesn't really understand the insult, or the way it seems to - for half a moment - take B, split him open, and remove all of his organs. His mouth opens, then closes, and the air in the room shifts, thicker and deeper and easier to melt away into, and Mello thinks then that he doesn't really need to understand in order to _know_.

Beyond takes slow steps closer to Merrie, leaning over her like a towering skyline of whites and blacks and glinting teeth. "I'm sure you've heard of the Black Dahlia in your line of work, yes? Elizabeth Short, age twenty-two, cut all the way in half. Killer never caught. It's a fascinating case, isn't it? And beautiful, too, in the most sickening way. I've always wanted to _try something similar_. A Christmas present for a friend, eh?"

Merrie Kenwood grits her teeth, face set as if making a pointed effort to not be afraid. "It's November."

B grins. "I'm an early shopper."

"Hey!" Mello snaps, tired of being written off as the junior partner, now that B's found someone his own size to pick on. Not that he misses being the subject of the mind games and death threats, he just - this isn't getting them anywhere. "We're not cutting anybody in half," he says, firmly, forcing his voice not waver, for his resolve to remain set in his jaw. "And we're not killing her."

B rolls his eyes, expression loosening from monstrous to something like pouty, as if he's just been told he's not allowed a new puppy. "Well, we either have to kill her or take her with us, as we can't have her skipping off to make her reports to Granddaddy, and the former sounds like a lot more fun to me."

"I'll go with you," Merrie puts in, before Mello can even begin to make his argument.

"Mmhmm," Beyond says, dragging the sound out as he lets his bones shift lazily, "because you won't tip off airport security as soon as we get there, I'm sure? Nope, not taking the chance," he says without waiting for an answer.

And that's - does he really want to kill her? What about the numbers? Either he'd been lying then, or he's lying now, because he's not going to make the decision based on the possibility of her slowing them down, he'll make it by - Mello doesn't know, consulting the stars or laying out tarot cards or some similar rot. Listening to the universe. Maybe he's just trying to get more -

"Shinigami!" Merrie says loudly, as B moves in, as if for the kill. "It means 'god of death.'"

\- Information. Oh.

"I know what it means," B says, but he's stopped, expression going genuinely interested for a moment, before slipping back behind the mask of terror, disappearing into the whites of his eyes.

"I've seen one," Merrie says, "up close and personal. So has L. So has the whole Kira investigation team. And the murder weapon, the way Kira kills, I know that, too. And, trust me, if you want to find L without dying the moment Yagami realizes you're in Tokyo, you need to know this stuff. And I won't tell you unless you take me with you."

Her eyes are flat, her jaw is set, and she's either being very clever or very stupid - or maybe both at once.

"God of death," B repeats, moving closer to her, frowning with what looks like genuine interest. "What does it look like?"

"You're kidding, right?" Mello puts in, loathing to be ignored almost as much as he finds himself annoyed by B's weird mysticism bullshit. "I mean, yeah, let's not kill her - but Shinigami? Isn't that just a bit too hokey, even for you?"

Beyond snorts, the sound rocking echoey through the room. "Believe it or not, I don't have a very hard time accepting the otherworldly." He moves in closer to Merrie, bopping one long, claw-like finger against her nose, ridiculously. "Oh, and if you make one move toward getting us caught - and I mean _one move_ , one jerk of your pretty little pinkie finger - I'll kill you and everyone in the immediate vicinity in half a heartbeat. Don't think for a second that I can't."

She believes him, Mello can tell. He believes him, too - at least on the _can_. He's not so sure about the _will_. He's not so sure about most things, when it comes to Beyond.

Merrie stares up at him, not even bothering to shake his touch off of her face. Not even seeming to notice it. "What _are_ you?" she asks.

B pauses, then loosens suddenly, laughing jerkily. "Jeez, if people keep asking me that, I'm gonna get a complex or something."

 

\---

 

It takes only a few moments for her to track down Ryuk once she's back on Earth, as he's the only Shinigami presence she senses - though, evidently, not the only one around, unless the King's instincts are going haywire in his old age, and Rem knows just as well as any of her breed does that it doesn't work like that. There is no such thing as old age in the Shinigami realm. There is only the spinning, faulty wheel of time and those that manage to hang onto it longer than others.

And the King is the most accomplished _hanger-on._

Ryuk is, predictably, doing nothing of any import. Bobbing upside down outside of L's building, he nips and paws at passers-by, seeming to take great amusement at their inability to sense his presence. She thinks she sees him giving one harried woman bunny-ears, and then wonders vaguely how she even knows what that is.

But - Misa, of course. Everything that she knows, is, and has become is because of Misa Amane. It is consistently weakening to realize that she doesn't wish it any other way.

Gliding down on steady wings, she yanks Ryuk away from the woman with one lucid hand and a jerk of her shoulder, and he flips around to grin at her amiably.

"Oh hey! Did you know that you can get apples baked into bread? This world is amazing!"

Rem blinks at him, still near shuddering with the weight of this plane of existence around her, shifting weary and hard and bright on her flesh. There's dirt on the ground and laughter in the streets and the pulsing uneasiness of humanity. She may have grown used to it of late, but the sharp contrast between this tremendous noise and the _utter silence_ of the Shinigami world is apparent to her from the quick switch. Here and then gone, then quickly back again.

"I did," Rem says, knocking the subject aside, impediment that it is. She cocks her head. "Did you know that there are two other Shinigami in the human world?"

"Huh?" Ryuk says, grin slitting down into a confused glint of teeth. "Really? Who?"

His shock is genuine, she can tell, and is then confused as to the thought process. Of course it is. Shinigami, as a general rule of temperament, do not lie. They have no need to. Dishonesty is for the wheedling, small and weak. For humans who cannot get what they want any other way. Humans like Light Yagami. A true God has no need of such a false means of control; they simply have it.

"I don't know," Rem says, letting go of him and pulling away. And the King doesn't, either. It was as if he could sense but not see, which means…. She does not know what that means. "The King told me about them." She turns, scanning the midmorning skyline.

Ryuk's expression shifts. "That old kook is awake again?" He laughs, and it echoes through the streets, drowning out the hum and drone of everything else. "Oh man, I wanna go see him!"

"You can't just _leave_ the human world while you have a Note down here," Rem says, turning around because she know he'll follow her.

Ryuk scratches his head with one jagged claw. "Yeah, but how did you?"

"He called me," Rem says, glancing over her shoulder with one irritated eye.

"But _why_?" Ryuk whines, grin shaped anxious, petulant like that of child who doesn't understand. But that's the thing about Ryuk, he is not a child, and he does understand far more than he makes apparent. He just likes having things explained. He likes watching people explain things. He likes to _watch_.

"Because," Rem continues, leading him on towards the abandoned office building, to where L is, "I was speaking to someone I shouldn't have been." She's going to have to explain that sending messages to Thierry Morello - for whatever reason, and the possibilities range from _overarching master plan_ to mindless fun - is not going to endear her to other beings of her sort, and if he wants her to try again, he's going to have to make a far more convincing argument for it.

But, then - she stops. Ryuk stops behind her, not because of her, but _with_. She looks back at him.

"Do you feel that?"

His grin splits his face like a seam opened up, sharp teeth glinting in the open white skies over Tokyo. "Sure do."

 

\---

 

Merrie - or Wedy, as she insists on being called; and as he's in a similar situation, he respects her wishes - wants to go back to the hotel to pick up her equipment, and Mello agrees that lots of guns and telescopes and whatever else Wammy's agents use would probably come in handy when tracking down L, but B refuses. And as he's the one with the rib-spreader and the can-do spirit required to use it, they have to abide by his wishes.

Cornering him as Syd finishes up the passports and Merrie - _Wedy_ \- showers in the dirty washroom that looks like it hasn't been properly used in years, B lines his lips up to Mello's ear, breathing in tingling ripples across his skin, " _Watch her_."

He pulls back then, but not wholly out of the region of uncomfortable proximity, and murmurs, "She's not given up. Not even close. And that's fine, it'd be a shame if she had, but you have to remember that she's not on our side, she'll take her first decent chance at getting us caught, and more than likely, she thinks she's leading us straight into Papa Wammy's hands by going with us on our journey east." He clutches each of Mello's cheeks in his clammy hands, holding him more like a handful of flesh than the human being breathing under it. "That's okay, let her think that, but don't for a slice of a second trust her."

Mello jerks, quite weakly, out of his grasp, folding his arms across his chest. "I'm not stupid," he says. And then, after a long moment, "So. Us? We have a side, you and me?"

Beyond blinks at him, humming somewhere low in his throat. "Of course," he says, like it's nothing, like they're old pals and Mello isn't still vaguely afraid of being brutally murdered by him. B leans in, pressing one sloppy kiss to Mello's forehead - like pecking a grandchild - and scampers off to harass Syd, calling over his shoulder, "Us castoffs have gotta stick together."

 

\---

They leave Syd at a street-corner a few blocks from his shop with a tibia bone in his hand and a, _'Thanks very much for your hospitality,'_ that, in reality, translates more to, "We're taking the car. We'll leave it in the Heathrow parking lot. I'll even fill up the tank."

Syd chews on his lip and looks a bit like he wants to smack B across his face, but then he more or less always looks like that. "Take whatever you want, as long as you promise not to come back." And then a smile, weak and a little forced and brimming with the pangs of leftover terror, but a look that Mello has grown almost fond of by now. Syd is almost familiar. Syd is almost a friend.

He waves him a solemn, wordless goodbye from the passenger's seat. Wedy is cuffed in the back, rolling her eyes and occasionally bemoaning the lack of leather interior.

Beyond gets out of the car and hugs him around the middle, squeezing him to his chest like a lover not to be seen for ages. Syd looks surprised and wildly uncomfortable, and he freezes stock still for a moment, before taking a couple breaths and patting B lightly on the back, glancing up at Mello for assistance, who just shrugs in the evening chill.

B pulls back, and looks at Syd with a soulful gaze that skates the edges of comical. "We had some times, didn't we?"

Syd blinks at him, then nods. "They were awful, awful times, B."

"Stay sharp, Sydney," he calls back, climbing into the car. "And keep the sobriety up. It's a dandy look on you."

As they pull away from the curb and into the bustle of the London roads, Mello watches in the rearview mirror as Syd flips their retreating car off. From the back, Wedy says, "Why didn't you kill him?" with a sigh of bored curiosity.

Beyond doesn't glance back at her, and Mello's glad of that. He's a mad enough driver as it is. "Wasn't his time."

 

\---

 

Mello barely believes that they get through airport security alright, but they wave him through without a second glance, and even though B earns himself a long look that may just be the fight-or-flight instinct rising in the guard, he's waved through along with everyone else. Wedy flashes one the many false identification papers she keeps in her purse and smiles pretty, giving no indication of her wounds, nor her unwavering dislike for her traveling companions.

Mello's got no idea where B had found the time - not to mention the money - to book a flight, but he'd evidently managed it, and well too, as they've got three seats together near the window. Wedy's made to sit between them, and Beyond is in the aisle so that neither of them can make their respective dashing escapes. Not that Mello can think of a reason he'd want to, at this point. Not when he's so close to his goal, to Tokyo, to L.

It's not as if he'd particularly believed that stuff about them being on the same side and sticking together and all that, but, well, he'd be lying if he said he hadn't grown just a little _used_ to B. He sort of grows on you. Like cancer. Not the mention, he's gotten him this far. Even if he is a psycho - which Mello is honestly starting to question, inarguable murderer though he still remains.

When they're all settled in with their beverages and their inflatable pillows and little movie screens - strange and wondrous to Mello, who hasn't been on a plane since he was a little kid, and never one so large or advanced - he turns to Wedy and asks what he's been meaning to ask for the past several hours.

"So, uh, this Yamaguchi - "

"Yagami," B corrects, from the other side of the row, as he rubs his temples. _Air sickness_ , he'd said before, grinning like the loon that he debatably is.

"Yagami," Mello continues. "He's Kira?"

Wedy shrugs, sipping her gin in its little plastic cup. "L thought so."

" _Thinks_ so," B corrects, adjusting her past tense to present.

Wedy rolls her eyes, huffing, and seeming not to remember any of the mass of varied threats he'd treated her to before lift-off, or at least not caring. "It's funny," she says, not sounding amused at all, "I don't think the boy asked you."

"Don't think so much," B says, licking his teeth with a sly, nighttime grin that Mello is well familiar with. "Don't you know everyone hates that in a woman?"

Wedy grins back, sharp and, god, she either really doesn't like Beyond, or really does. She's wearing lipstick again, back to being poised and perfect, even coming apart at the seams as she is, just under her clothes.

"One day," she murmurs, turning to B, voice low so that none of the other passengers will listen in and, uh, call security. "One day I'm going to put my gun in your mouth and I'm going to pull the trigger. And I'm going to keep pulling, and pulling, and pulling, until you stop talking." She takes another sip of gin, and shoots a self-satisfied smirk over at Mello.

On her other side, B bites his lip. "Oh, death threats," he says. "Be still my heart."

Part of Mello really wishes they'd stop flirting - despite the fact that it, thankfully, takes B's array of eager sexual innuendo off of him as the target - but another part rather hopes that they don't. That they have sex and fall in love and adopt Mello, and then the three of them move into a nice apartment in Tokyo and nobody dies and nobody gets tortured, and maybe they never find L and maybe it's alright. Maybe they get a cat.

Probably not, though. Probably Merrie Kenwood is going to end up dead. All Mello can really afford to hope for is that he doesn't join her.

 

\---

 

Her father is in the lobby, setting up a business lunch with some important client or another, trading dull jokes and duller gossip, and as to not be made into an ornament of sale, Kiyomi opts to wait out on the sidewalk. The November air is chilly, so she wraps her fur tighter around her shoulders and flips open her compact, checking for lipstick smudges and creased spots of skin.

No, of course not. Smooth as porcelain, everything as perfect as she'd set it, after a thin breakfast and half an hour of aerobics - no more coffee, caffeine rots you - lining it all up with surgical precision, presenting exactly the face that she needs to present: sweet girl, good daughter, honey and silk and everything lovely. Someone who doesn't go out drinking in underground bars in Roppongi, and especially doesn't make-out with nameless men against bathroom mirrors.

She powders her face a bit more, just to make certain that the bags under her eyes are virtually invisible, and is about to snap her mirror closed when there's a flicker of movement in the rearview, and everything under her skin - blood and bones and starched straight sinews - jerks up a few centimeters on instinct.

Kiyomi spins around, ankles wobbly, hand going immediately to her purse to jerk around for her pepper spray. Come on, come on, _come on_ \- it's - it's not. There's nothing there. No one.

She's starting to breathe out, shoulders releasing their tense hold, when there's a scrabbling crash from the thin alley in between the office buildings, holding only the drains and manholes, and - someone. There's someone there. The shadows are thick and she can't make out a face, only the shivering length of an overlarge body, pale hands and a glint of orange or - is that red? Is that _blood_?

She should move, she should go over to investigate - pepper spray at the ready - she should do _something_ , get someone, be the girl in the bar with the liquor in her mouth and the laugh grinding her teeth and nothing holding her back, holding her tight - but no no no. She is not that girl.

What would Kiyomi Takada do? Something clever, probably. She's just so clever. Everyone says so.

She takes a step forward, suede pump making an echoing thunk on the cold concrete, and the figure freezes, hunching further. Hair, hair, _they have a lot of hair_. They have - there's a body, it's small. Small hands, small fingers, tiny breath and it's all gone and oh no no no no - where is that girl? Where is Kiyomi Takada? Where is her father? Where is anyone? No one is home. Call back later.

She can't, she can't, she can't - there's a child. There's more than one.

The hair flips and the shadows break for a second and she is struck by a lightning fast glint of cognizance, flickering in the bright eyes of the someone climbing into the manhole, dragging the bodies of a few children after them. It.

After it. _Something._

She screams. She turns and she screams and her voice feels as if it carries across the city, climbing in windows and slipping under doors, hollowing everything out to fill it with _sound_. Terror. She is terrified. She thinks, more aware of the world inside her head than the reality outside of it, that this is the scariest moment of her life. There has never been terror in her before. It's here now. It's swallowing her up.

She turns, she runs, moving as quickly as she can, forgetting about decorum and her designer shoes and anything but getting away.

As it is, though, she doesn't get two steps before she slams shoulder first into the chest of Teru Mikami, who, on contact, yells just as loud as she does.

 

\--- 

 

The headquarters are abuzz with a lively hum that hasn't quite been present since L was around, and it all breathes one word, false as it is: _progress_. The excitement of development, of change - the lack of stagnation that L had always insisted so heartily upon - it's here and it's breeding hope, and Light, for the life of him, can't tell if that's a bad thing or not.

It's either distraction or rejuvenation, and he can't quite decide which. Whatever the outcome, though, Rem's not going to escape punishment - unsure as he is as to how to enact it. He'd had everything in line, all ordered and neat, and now it's spun out of his grasp, into the open, and he's got to scramble for the pieces. If not a real threat, it's at the very least heavily inconvenient.

He should be in Ikebukuro, face pressed into L's jaw, drinking coffee and asking where is hurts and laughing with the morning. He should be allowed to have that.

Instead, he's staring around at the faces of the other investigators, equal parts eager and nervous. And they're looking to him for guidance. Of course.

He clears his throat, fingers playing on his loose collar, and says, "I think we all know what this could mean," mostly because he enjoys the unsure glances they give each other, and knowing that they _don't know_ anything at all really, and are completely reliant on him to lead them by the hand. He takes a deep breath, and makes like he's forcing himself not to smile, but it's slipping in at the edges, anyway. "If the Shinigami is still in the city, that means L could be, too."

"Light," his father says, a stern kindness wavering on his lined face, "it's important not to let your hopes get up too high. I wish to find Ryuzaki just as much as you do, but - "

"I know, I know, it's a long shot," Light says, feigning stunted disappointment, which he makes a show of shoving down behind his eyes. "But we have a to pursue every avenue and, well, without hope, we would have just given the world to Kira a long time ago. I know this isn't much, but it's a start, and if we pursue this lead to its end, who knows what we could find? If not L, then maybe Kira himself."

He looks around, eyes wide with youthful enthusiasm, and it takes everything in him to keep himself from laughing outright. As if they had ever needed to _give_ Kira anything. As if he hadn't just taken it on day one.

"Aiber," he says, turning the lone, pastel shadow slumping at the corner of the room. Watari's nowhere to be seen, but he's sent his dashing little envoy to do the dirty work. Their eyes meet and everything of last night steeps in the glance for a half second - the kiss, the loathing, the almost-truth slithering around between them. It dries up in an instant, and then it's just business. "What did it say to you, exactly?"

Breathing in luridly and letting his eyes roll around the room with an air of disinterest, Aiber shrugs. "Just that it had a message for me. And it called me by name." There's a little twitch to his lips on the last word, as if he knows very clearly how much Light would like to be able to do the same.

"Well, what was the message?" Aizawa asks, cutting Light off rather unspectacularly.

"Don't know," Aiber says. "It didn't get that far. A moment later, it was gone."

"It left?"

"No, it didn't leave. It was just _gone_. Disappeared. Maybe I blinked for half a second, but it didn't have a chance to fly off or burst into a puff of smoke. Just gone."

Light frowns, looking around at the faces of mirrored confusion around him.

"I suppose Shinigami can do that," Light's father says, a resigned sort of lilt in his voice that has been there for weeks.

"I suppose," Light says, although he's never seen it done before, and Ryuk isn't exactly subtle with his abilities or peculiarities. Dammit, what was Rem doing? Something for L, no doubt, but what's with the show? Is Aiber lying? Did he really get a message and the disappearing act is just a crappy cover story? No, no, no, that's far too sloppy, even for the likes of him. If he had, the best option would have been to just not mention it at all, and that's no doubt what he would have done had he actually gotten a message.

So, what had happened?

"You weren't, um, intoxicated, by any chance, were you?" he asks, forcing the sly smile in his voice not to spill over onto his lips.

" _Yagami_ ," Aiber growls.

"Light," his father says, at the same time.

"I'm sorry, it just, it doesn't make a lot of sense, you know?" Light says, looking around at them all. "I mean, the thing tells you it has a message for you, but then disappears before it can deliver it? I think that warrants suspicion that the story may not have the most reliable narration."

"Maybe that was the message?" Matsuda puts in, speaking up for the first time in the whole discussion - an unusual silence that Light supposes he should have treasured while it had lasted.

_That Aiber's incompetent?_ Light wants to say, but doesn't. Instead, he asks, "What?"

Matsuda looks around, wavering and unsure. "The, uh, the disappearing. I mean, maybe the message was _/poof!'_ Well, not 'poof,' but you know what I mean? Maybe it's some kind of complicated coded message that we're supposed to figure out."

Or that Aiber is.

Light frowns. He can't quite wrap his head around it, but Matsuda might have actually just said something that's halfway to intelligent. He can't let him know that, though, not any of them. If there is a code, he's got to be the only one to figure it out.

"That doesn't follow," he says, shaking his head. "If we learned anything from our dealings with the Shinigami, it's that it's not really the most intellectually advanced creature around. No, I'm betting it was more to do with Kira."

"Kira sent a message?" Aizawa asks.

"No," Light says, "Kira intercepted the message. Whatever the Shinigami was going to say, Kira got wind of it and, I don't know, called it back?"

Matsuda's eyebrows fly up the play hockey with his hairline. "Can he do that?"

Light shakes his head. "I don't know. We have no idea of the full scope of what Kira is capable of, but if the power of the Notebook is any indication, he can do _a lot_. We've got to be careful, now more than ever." He looks around at the group gathered, all of them tense now, and far less eager, and would very much like to smile.

In the back, Aiber is rolling his eyes soundlessly, one chunky thumb playing obnoxiously with his lighter. He, of course, doesn't buy it for a second, but then Light had never expected him to.

He's just about to continue his speech - with something no doubt uplifting and fear-mongering in equal measure - when a voice crackles over the intercom, and a stylized _W_ shows up on one of the computer screens. 

"Yagami," Watari says, and as he always refers to Light's father as Chief Yagami, they all know who he's addressing. "I do apologize for the interruption, but something's happened that you might be interested in. It's not related to the Kira case, as far as I know, but as you asked me to keep an eye on any police updates on the serial child murders that have been happening - "

"What is it?" Light asks. More, already? It was just three last night, it can't - that's ridiculous - it's not even been - 

"Two children have just gone missing, in broad daylight. Not a few blocks from here."

The investigators go wide-eyed, a collective starkness overtaking the room. Matsuda looks as if he might cry. Even Aiber looks troubled, brow crumpled and eyes fallen closed.

"There could still be time," Light says, hurriedly, all thoughts of performance going out the window as everything in him aches with true tragedy. "They might still be alive."

This is his city, his country, his _world_. And people like this killer, like this disgusting, foul excuse for human life doing this to these kids? He is not allowed here. He has to go somewhere else. He has to bleed and suffer and hurt and _die_ , and Light will be damned if Kira isn't the one who kills him.

"The police are out patrolling every street," Watari rattles off quickly, "cars are being searched, the district is practically on lockdown. But there's something else, a possible witness. A woman saw something apparently very suspicious and frightening very near to both the scenes of disappearance. The police are having a hard time getting anything out of her, as she's possibly in shock. If I'm not mistaken, I believe you go to school with her. A Miss Kiyomi Takada?"

Light blinks. Everything today is very, very, very strange. He blinks again. And it keeps getting stranger.

 

\---

 

Teru Mikami calls the police for her. Teru Mikami explains the situation to her father - who then, with a quick kiss to her cheek, disappears on a quest to keep the story from breaking in the papers without an appealing spin on his family. Teru Mikami sits with her at the police station, another witness in the case, though they both know he'd seen nothing but her.

"Your lipstick," he says, as the police shuffle around one another, making calls and looking for files - completely incompetent, the lot of them - and points at her chin. She can feel the waxy smudge dipping below the neat line of her mouth and she grimaces and begins searching frantically through her purse for a tissue to wipe it away.

This is all wrong. This is a terrible morning.

_When?_ is the first question they ask.

She doesn't know. Earlier. Half an hour ago, maybe more. 

_Where?_ they ask next, for confirmation, because they'd picked her up there and they know. It's procedure, Mikami says, and Kiyomi ignores him because she is awfully good at that.

They'd asked all the the same questions at the scene, when she'd been shaking, unable to speak, to verbalize her terror as anything more than, "I'm alright, I'm alright," a confirmation more to herself than to anyone else present. _Head, hands, feet, shoulders - you're here, you're all here._ But the terror, still.

She knows what question they're going to ask next, still doesn't know how to answer. _Who?_ they ask, and her hands shake.

"I don't know," she says, moving her head in a half-aborted shake, "I didn't see, I - "

"But you saw the children?" the officer asks, frowning, pressing for answers she's not giving. But she _can't_ , she can't tell them. They wouldn't believe her, they'd sigh and whisper amongst themselves, and she can't take the whispers again.

"Yes," she says, nodding, composing herself, appearing as sane as she possibly can. "I think they were children. They were small. But the - person dragging them, I didn't - it was dark, and only for a few seconds. Just a few glimpses and then I ran." Setting her shoulders, she lets her eyes glint tearily, courageously, the way all the doctors applaud. "Not very brave, I suppose. Maybe if I'd followed them, if I'd done something other than shriek and run away, maybe - "

The officer is already shaking his head sympathetically - evidently very much softened in her favor by now - but Mikami speaks first.

"Don't be ridiculous," he says, in that same quivering no-nonsense tone he always uses. "Your duty as a citizen was to report the crime, not take up vigilantism."

Kiyomi wants to frown, but doesn't let a hint of it show on her face. She knows for a fact that Mikami is, despite what he's saying now, quite in support of certain forms of vigilantism. And, as a golden opportunity like this only rarely presents itself, she raises one delicate brow and says, "Do you really believe that, Mikami-san, or are you just saying it because you shrieked and ran away with me?"

His expression immediately flattens, and that of the officers goes frowning and quizzical - doubting her. She can't have that. She can't - it all has to be just as she says.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs after a moment, hand to her heart, "the stress is getting to me. I mean no offense, Mikami-san. I'm sure I don't know what I would have done without you there."

That seems to appease the officer, but she watches as Mikami barely restrains an eye roll, and the familiar practice of baiting him makes her feel more steady-footed than she has since they'd gotten here. It's okay, it's okay, it's all going to be okay. She hadn't seen anything. Not anything.

The questions are dispensed with for the moment - the police offering her some respite before the next wave, she supposes - and the officer with them goes off to get her a cup of coffee, which she thanks him for, despite having no intention of drinking it. Caffeine is hell on her complexion.

When they're left alone for a full moment, Mikami mumbles, with barely a glance at her, "I didn't _shriek_ , I - "

"Oh, whatever," Kiyomi says, rolling her eyes, "and you're very against individual enacted justice as well, of course."

Mikami huffs beside her, straightening up. "Well, what was I meant to say? Announce my unpopular affiliation in a building crowded to the brim with those that strongly oppose my views as part of their job description? That would have been extremely foolish."

Kiyomi looks away, plucking at the dirt somehow caught under her fingernails. "I know that. I only thought it was funny." Teru Mikami is the most fervent Kira-supporter she has ever met - and considering that there are quite a few extremists running in her social circles, kept under wraps as they are, that is saying quite a lot.

"Nothing about this situation is amusing, Takada-san," he says grimly. "Two children are as good as dead."

"I _know_ that," she snaps back, "but I don't see what my state of humor is going to do about it. I don't even know why I'm still here. There's nothing else I can tell them."

"Perhaps the truth?"

Her eyes jerk over to Mikami's face, set in a stern line, grim with that old-world justice of his. She may agree with his basic tenants of morality, but she hasn't got half of his fanaticism and has no interest in taking it up. And, that aside, she doesn't like the fact that he thinks himself able to question her.

"I have no idea - " she begins, but he doesn't let her get far.

"You're not as good a liar as you think," he tells her.

She clenches her jaw. "And you're not half as clever as you tell yourself."

"You _saw_ something," he shoots back at her, ignoring the jab. "It's obvious. If you don't tell the police then you may hinder the investigation invariably, and perhaps you value your reputation more than the apprehension of an extremely dangerous child rapist and murderer, but - "

"It's not about my _reputation_ ," she snaps, because it isn't, it _isn't_ , she's not so shallow as that - and Father is keeping her out of the papers, besides. There's a bit of a clamor towards the front of the station, a lot of raised voices, but they're tucked neatly behind a weight-bearing beam, out of the general commotion, and it all sails right past like a wave. Kiyomi closes her eyes, tries to breathe steady, then turns back to Mikami to flash them open and say, "They won't believe me."

Mikami, however, is not looking at her.

"Who won't believe what?" Light Yagami's pleasant, familiar voice asks, filling up all of the space in their close little corner and making Kiyomi's head reel even more than it has already been doing this morning, what with the murder and kidnapping and horror.

Light's presence knocks that all out of the park.

 

\---

 

Her steps don't echo down the hall, and the only reason L hears her is that she's shouting, "Rem! Rem!" at the top of her delicate little lungs. She's wearing tennis shoes, jeans, and a shirt in an aesthetically offensive shade of pink. Hair in a bun, large sunglasses. She looks like Barbie, Spy Edition, except Barbie would be far better at disguising herself. Barbie's always good at her jobs, no matter how many hundreds she has. That's the whole point.

"She's not here," L says.

He's standing, stretching again. He'd really like to be able to move more, to do jumping jacks - even if they'd cause a raucous commotion of clanging metal - but there's an ache low in his back and his muscles feel like they'd all been torn out and then sewn back under his skin upside-down. He'd woken with most of the blood and spit and come cleaned off of him, but there's some left tacky and thick deep between his thighs and he wishes, with no little fervor, for a long hot shower and an actual bed and a day alone to recuperate.

Not from the sex so much - he's hardly that delicate - as the words. Thoughts and poetry and Plath ringing in his ears. He feels stupid, embarrassed of himself, like the morning after a night of binge-drinking and vomiting on doorsteps.

Misa puts her hands on her hips, looking him up and down. "She might be. Just because you can't see her, doesn't mean she isn't around."

L tilts his head. "You can't find her, can you?" he asks, trying to occupy her mind, so that she doesn't focus overmuch on his physical state. 

"That's none of your business." She twirls in a circle, checking about her, as if Rem is lodged away in a ceiling crack and will be tugged out with little effort if only she could be found.

"Hmm, interesting," L says out loud, though only because he wants her to stop, and frown, and pause uncomfortable; all of which she does quite commendably.

"What is?"

"You," he remarks keenly. Flattery might get him somewhere, and then again it might not. She seems to react more to Light's distaste than she does to her thousands of adoring fans, but the question becomes: is it because of the man himself that she scrambles at his feet, or because of the rejection. Does she long only for what she cannot have, or does she simply long for _him_ , whatever way you slice it? L taps his fingers on the wall, and his nails make a sound. He hasn't been able to clip them in weeks.

He continues, "You're kinder to me when he's around."

Misa worries her lip - pale and unpainted as it is, for once without make-up - and shrugs defensively. "So?"

"So," L says, dragging out the word, "I'm guessing it's less to win his favor, and more just to piss him off, right? Nobody gets to bring me coffee but him. Thanks for that, by the way." It hadn't been good coffee, but it made his brain work. "I know what you're doing, of course. You're putting yourself between he and I so he'll have to go through you to get to me." He feels pale and fluorescent in the shuttered grey light, peeking in from boarded windows. "So, how was it, then? When he 'went through you,' so to speak?"

He pops his eyebrows and expects her to wrinkle her nose, but the lack of chains and buckles and black must signify a greater lack. She is emptied of her pretensions. She did not come here to put on a show. She came here for Rem, pure and simple, almost sweet. So, then what is he doing? Why is he baiting?

Because he wants a show, isn't it? He's bored. He's B, nine years old, poking at the deer carcass with his bare hands just to watch the maggots squirm.

Thought, that's not very kind to Miss Amane, is it, making her the carcass? Or maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe she'd made herself that a long while ago. Something to be poked at, prodded. Something that longs for prodding.

He's, uh… getting into the innuendos again, and it's not so much fun without Light here to scoff at them.

Misa's jaw is clenched and her eyes are hard and he is hurting her, he knows he is, and there is some moral imperative that says he should stop, but also a deeper, truer, more animal desire to _keep going_. To wear her down with fingerprints and marks, until she does something worth watching - collapses, explodes, implodes. Cries, yells, throws a tantrum. Says something intelligent. Does something drastic. Leaves. Comes back, and leaves again.

That's all his relationships with most people are, he supposes. A series of tiny experiments. _What will happen if I press this button? Or that one?_

He always presses. He always finds out. That's what ends with him chained up in buildings that he owns, hungry and smelling of linoleum, crick in his neck, patterns inside his eyes that makes up constellations outside of himself, long ago memorized. Maps and charts. The Tokyo train roots, all the little roads, touching each other at odd points, only to fly off away again. It's in him, rattling around, and it's because he'd put it there. Pressed the button.

He presses Misa's buttons and she stares at him for a long time, as if frozen in the moment, not letting the scene continue until she's got a proper hold on what she wants, what she means, and what she's going to say.

Then, resolutely, she straightens, walks over, grabs him by the face with both hands, and kisses him. Her lips are soft, and she smells clean, but unscented. Warm hands, loose blonde hairs; her eyes are wide open. So are his, but unfocused, gaping at something too up close to get a proper look at. She's much shorter than him, and his spine curves more fully to accommodate her. He kisses back.

He wonders if this qualifies as an explosion or an implosion.

 

\---

 

He'd believed himself fully prepared for the situation, however it lay, up until the moment he'd walked around the corner. Takada screaming at him, Takada crying, Takada ordering him out. Stony silence, enthusiastic politeness, utter disinterest. He'd even considered the possibility - slim as it was - that she might not even remember him. It had all been accounted for, and he'd run all the scenarios in his mind and decided on the most appropriate responses.

Teru Mikami had not factored into any of them.

Teru Mikami is no longer supposed to be involved one way or another. He'd served his purpose, had in fact served several, and Light had liked him well enough, but he'd been discharged. The game doesn't need any more players, particularly not ones that don't even know the rules.

"Ah, Mikami-san," he says, not needing to falsify his surprise, though he does certainly tone down his level of annoyance. "What are you doing here? The report only mentioned Kiyomi, I didn't know - "

"I - Takada-san and I were both at the scene. I accompanied her to the station in order - "

"I think the better question," Takada says, interrupting Mikami flat-out and flashing an uneasy frown at Light, "is what _you're_ doing here. Just because your father's a policeman doesn't mean you've got an all-access pass to every on-going investigation, does it? And if it does, I'll really have to have _my_ father bring the subject up with the board of directors, because if security is this lax, I fear for my personal safety."

Ah, so she doesn't remember him fondly, then. Light's irritation is mounting, but he does his best to keep it undetectable.

Going stiffer and sharply professional, he says, "I'm here on behalf of L. He's taken an interest in this case."

Mikami blinks, wiping at his glasses before pushing them back up his nose. "Taken an interest, has he? Was that before or after the two recent attacks? I suppose it finally made it to his minimum body-count range, then."

"That's… " Light doesn't know what to say to that. He agrees, actually, and the truth of it is that he doesn't know whether this case would have even peaked L's interest enough for him to embark on it, were he still in his same position of power, and that disgusts and angers him, but he - he can't tell Mikami that. He has to appear as the good little solider, just taking orders from above, blind to any possible wrong-doings of his idol. "There's a lot going on right now," is what he settles on. "With Kira still on the loose, the world is in a state of flux and resources are scattered. This case has only recently come to his attention."

"Yes, of course," Mikami says, "what with all of the innocent criminals being targeted, it's understandable that these children escaped his notice."

Takada huffs a slight, humorless laugh, but she's not looking at either of them. She's pale and far less composed than he's ever seen her, while, conversely, Mikami is acting far more alive, more sure of himself, than he's ever done around Light before. Tragedy, he supposes, cuts people to the quick, bringing the roots to the top, and letting the rest all wash away in the surrounding dirt.

Swallowing down his vague desire to pursue the subject of L - to hear Mikami continue his diatribe against him and perhaps have Takada join in - he doesn't much fancy playing defender to the ethical decisions that he's spent the last year opposing, and besides, he's here for a very different reason.

"Look," he says, sighing with all the well-intentioned charm he can muster, "I'm getting the impression that neither of you are too happy to see me at the moment, and you're fully within your rights to feel how you do, but if we want even the slightest chance of saving those children, we're going to have to put aside our issues and work with each other. Now L, however you feel about him, is a brilliant man, and he can _help_. Just, please, Kiyomi, Teru - " and the familiarity might be taking it a step far, but the way their eyes on him start to soften immediately tells him it's in the right direction, nonetheless - "tell me what you saw."

And they do.

 

\---

 

When she tugs herself off of him - briskly, like pulling oneself out of bathwater gone cold - she speaks immediately, as if it's something she'd been rushing to get out since the beginning, and only hadn't because of the impediment of his lips:

"I don't see what the big deal is."

Head cocked cutely, arms going across her chest. Without high heels, she's even smaller than usual, and it feels a bit like having his romantic prowess insulted by a child.

He blinks down at her. He knows what she means, of course, what the point had been, but he just mirrors her stance, and keeps his voice bored. "What deal would that be?"

"You," she mumbles, looking down at her hands as if she'll be able to see the stain of him marring her skin. "You kiss like any other guy. There's nothing special about it. And your breath stinks." It's strange, because they're the type of words that are supposed to be indignant, that she's supposed to squeal and snap, balling her pretty little fists all the while.

"Well, to be fair," he replies, "he hasn't let me brush my teeth in a couple of days. Moving threw my living arrangements a bit off balance, or didn't you notice my luxurious accommodations?" He holds up his chain jangling it against the air conditioning unit. "You don't happen to have a spare mattress along with that spare car, have you?"

She stares at him as if he's said something utterly confounding. "I just kissed you," she announces.

"Indeed you did." L's not sure what else to say.

"' _Indeed,'_ " she mimics, in a rather unflattering parody of his accent. "So, you're supposed to react. You're supposed to ask me _why_."

L nearly rolls his eyes. He supposes she's got a whole speech planned out in her head, then. Something about him being nothing to write home about, no one to _fall in love_ with, so then why, why, why? That's the question of all questions, isn't it? How did he, of all people, end up the man that he is, with the ability to do what he does? _Heartbreaker_ is perhaps an apt word. He doesn't have the face for it, nor the body, nor even the temperament. Maybe it was his particular set of circumstances. Maybe it was Beyond. But then why Beyond in the first place?

L is a heartbreaker and Misa's heart is broken, and the conduit between them, the heart that is their connecting point, is out for the day. L had woken up in his absence. L had lived in his absence for twenty-four years, and still he had felt strangely hollow when he'd opened his eyes to find himself alone this morning, legs shaky, words like _love_ painting echoes on his lips.

Not such a heartbreaker after all.

He doesn't let her have her speech. "I thought I reacted rather accommodatingly. The thing with my tongue, at the very least - "

"Shut-up," she says, "shut-up, shut-up, shut-up." Still low pitched, still muted, not half of her usual self-made production. 

"I know why," he tells her, matching the murmur of her tone. "I know, Misa." He leaves off the honorific at the last second, stumbling over the _s_ in _san_ , but abandoning it ultimately. She's meant to fall in love with him or something, anyway, isn't she? Love is without honorifics. Love is without honor of any sort. "I know what hurts, and I know why, and I know who. And it's not me. You're only here because he won't let you follow him so closely any longer, and I'm the nearest thing to him."

Her eyes are hazy and still. She looks like someone who is not herself, or at least not the self that she usually is. "What do I do?" she asks.

She doesn't look at him, but he doesn't need her to.

He shrugs. "You could try again."

 

\---

 

Takada insists on calling an officer over to substantiate Light's claims of being L's representative, and when he does such, she waits until the man is out of earshot to huff insults at his disappearing back. Ever concerned with image, that much doesn't seem to have been much rocked by her recent scare, but then she's far less poised than Light's ever seen her before. Perhaps because she thinks the role of the traumatized victim will suit just fine, and perhaps just because she doesn't find Mikami and Light's respective opinions worth her pretensions.

She used to. She and Light used to trade airs like a laughing chess game, both doubting one another wholly, maybe, but making as if they hadn't. Their very brief, uneventful relationship - if it even warrants the word - had been just that: a trade. An exchange of goods and services, emphasis on the latter. He had served to elevate her reputation by being the most sought-after boyfriend in their year, and she had been one of many covers - useless as they'd ultimately been - against L's probing eye.

Now she's just a girl he'd briefly dated a few months ago, and Mikami is just a man he'd fucked a weeks days ago.

Funny, he never really thought he'd have people like that, or be in a situation like this. In his mind's eye's view of his life, it was all much cleaner: his friends, his family, his acquaintances, lined in neat rows; Misa, Ryuk, and Rem in another; L in a whole column of his own. Mikami and Takada, though, hadn't even so much as made it on the map. They don't belong to him, in his life. He had cast them off when he'd finished with them, and yet here they are, both frowning at him expectantly.

And so, out of sheer necessity, the world continues on, personal feelings funneled out, and they lay their respective stories before him.

"I'd been on my way back from my lunch break. Early. I'm always early and the receptionist always glares at me because I make her do a slight bit of work when she'd rather be painting her nails and corresponding with her friends. There's an on-going case that requires my attention at every spare moment, and I meant to continue my work on it as soon as possible. I didn't manage to get to it. I didn't even make it indoors. I'm sure the receptionist is pleased. I met Takada-san on the steps, which isn't an unusual occurrence, as her father is a senior partner at my firm. It was unusual in other respects, though. She looked - to use a very tired phrase - as if she'd seen a ghost. I suppose, in reality, what she did see was near enough."

Bodies. _Bodies,_ she'd told him, and told the police. _And - and - and something else._ What? _I don't know._ What did they look like? _I don't know._

_Stop asking her questions, she's in shock. Call her emergency contact._

_No, her father works in the building. I'll get him._

Takada sits silently as Mikami speaks, Light taking notes all the while, though he doesn't intend to consult them. He'll remember it. He'll tell it to L in his own words. They'll figure this out. They'll find the bastard and _he will die_.

"I'm sure my information will be of far less use than Takada-san's, however. I only caught the tail end of the scene."

"You didn't see anything in the alley?" Light asks him, all professionalism, not letting the thin remembrance of Mikami's breath on his neck, hair tickling his chin, cock pulsing in his hand, color any part of his questioning. Mikami does him the service of returning the favor, and acts more or less like they barely know one another - which, Light supposes, is true. Heartbreak, etc. aside. He continues, "According to what I'm told, the police did a sweep of the area in question and found no blood, nor any other fluids, and no particular indication that anyone had been there at all, dead or alive."

"I know," Mikami says, nodding. "I was there, and though they held me back from the scene, I didn't see anything to correspond with what Takada-san has said." He swallows, not looking at her, though her eyes jerk up to Light as he speaks. "I want it noted, however, that - the possible exaggeration of the mind aside - I do not believe that she is lying, nor knowingly falsifying any of her account. The most she can be accused of is not sharing the full scope of her experience, and given the apparent trauma of what she saw, she can't be blamed overmuch for it."

Light finds himself almost smiling slightly. This is not a Teru Mikami that he's ever met before. This is not the stuttering bedroom fool, dropping his eye-glasses on the floor while aiming for the nightstand. This is not the under-enthusiastic lecturer being cornered by his student. This is a man doing his job, with the utmost surety and strength of belief. This is a _just_ man. Perhaps even what one would call and good man.

Light rather wouldn't mind having sex with him again. But not now. Now he has a job of his own to do.

"Thanks ever so for the confidence, Teru," Takada says abruptly. "I'm sure I don't _knowingly_ do anything." She's bitter, voice strung and weakening, and her hands shake slightly in her lap. She does not look like herself, and that's what makes Light believe that she is telling the truth, far more-so than any of Mikami's vouches. She is not quite this good an actress, and he knows real terror and confusion when he sees it. The inability to speak of the realities you face, on the account that silence might make them less real.

Mikami rolls his eyes, pointedly doesn't use her given name. "Takada-san, I apologize if my account has offended you. I only - "

"Go," she says, cutting him off starkly in the middle of his apology. "I'll only speak to Light alone. I'll only… " Her hands are still shaking.

Light sighs, then nods to Mikami. "Please," he commands, but makes it sound like a more of an entreaty.

Mikami goes. Then it's just the two of them: Light with his notepad, Takada with her fear.

 

\---

 

The second times goes on longer. She grasps his hair in her hands and melts into him with a determination that suggests that she isn't enjoying it half as much as she'd like to. He's a good kisser when he wants to be, though, so it's more than likely the mental blockade of _not Light_ that makes it less pleasant than it should be. He's not offended, doesn't have the energy to be, and is in fact keenly grateful to her for wearing bobby-pins in her hair.

As his fingers ruffle gently against her, she breathes softly along the seam of his lips, eyes blinking gently shut, before dragging herself firmly off of him. "This isn't helping," she sighs.

He doesn't know what she'd expected to be helped, but he also doesn't know that it matters. He shrugs. "I feel quite benefitted, thanks." His thumb twitches where he covers the stolen pin up in his hand.

Huffing, Misa crosses her arms and takes one more long look at him. "This never happened," she says, after a moment of breathing the same uneasy air at one another.

"What?" L asks. "Afraid Light will hear of your indiscretion and be heartbroken? I don't mean to be cruel, but that strikes me as unlikely." His lips tingles with here presence and he wonders why he hadn't found himself wrapped up in her instead. Why he hadn't gone for the weaker link, hadn't had sweating, quiet nights with her back at headquarters. Hadn't fallen in the love that wouldn't end up drowning him. He's done it a hundred times before - well, maybe not quite so many - seduced the accomplice instead of the true offender, gone in that way.

Looking back on it, that would have been the far more successful route, it he could have managed it. And quite a bit easier, probably. There wouldn't be this clawing sickness in the pit of his stomach, wouldn't be pennies dancing in his head like a light show. His insides would not be torn out from under his skin, emptied on the floor. A steaming pile of weakness.

It's only when Misa speaks, still standing unmoved from her guarded position, that he realizes that he'd been treating her like she'd already gone.

"Don't talk down to me," she says, vocal frills stripped, tone pale and insistent.

His eyebrows - where they're growing in across the bone - go up. "Then don't invite it."

"I'll invite whatever I want," she snaps back. Loose hair shining golden in the light that reaches in through the shaded cracks. She glows a different color than Light, but she glows. L wonders how he ever manages to get mixed up with such - to put it bluntly - _good looking_ people. Not all criminals are attractive, certainly, and he can quote firsthand experience on that, but there's a mesmerizing quality to certain sorts of killers. A self-denying, self-aware catastrophe that, when taken out of motion, when frozen at unearthly points between one great cataclysm to the next, is beautiful.

There he goes, romanticizing murder with the best of them. That's his job, though isn't it? He wouldn't do what he does if there wasn't artistry on all sides of it.

"Admirable," he tells her, because that's maybe the truest thing she's ever said to him - that's the basic tenant of how she operates, isn't it? "You'll get yourself ruined that way, but it's admirable nonetheless." He knows from experience. He knows.

He can feel it rotting him now, and alternately livening him in ways he's never felt before. What he has invited in.

She looks at him, swallows, then turns toward the exit. "If you see Rem, tell her I'm looking for her." She doesn't glance back at him, and he knows, because his eyes follow her all the way down the hall.

He waits until her steps have disappeared utterly, then counts down from a hundred after that just for good measure. When he's sure she's gone, he gets to work.

Without any other tools but his bare hands, bending and shaping the bobby pin is hard work, and smoothing down the end is what really takes the most time. He tries it a couple times and finds his work unsatisfactory, and has to go back to molding it a little more. Finally he gets it flat and bent at the right angle and when he jams it in the handcuff lock, even the extra-strength special order that it is, he eventually manages to pick it.

Just like riding a bike.

A rusted, very criminal bike that he and B had stolen at ages 10 and 8 respectively, when Roger had insisted to Watari that they were too young to learn these sorts of things. Back to basics.

Unhooked finally after so long, he feels weirdly bare. His wrist is mottled with pink lines of worn flesh and twisting it feels like walking with a wooden leg, but it's nothing that deters him for more than a few moments, before he makes his move.

The urge to go straight to the front door, run out, and borrow - using force, if need be - a cellphone from the first person he meets is strong. He doesn't put effort into fighting it. It's what he should do. It's the only reasonable option in the situation.

Without a second glance, he goes straight for the bathroom. He needs to wash, brush his teeth, clean himself up. There's no shower, but the sink will do just as well, and besides - he can't walk off when the game isn't even halfway done.

That would just be unsportsmanlike, nevermind the whole _tortured romance_ bit.

 

\---

 

"I don't believe in monsters," Kiyomi Takada tells him, in her slate grey upper-class Tokyo murmur. "I want that on the record. I don't believe in ghosts or UFOs. I think that astrology is meaningless sensationalism, that table-psychics are crooks, and that we don't go anywhere when we die." She taps her fingers on the arm of her chair.

Light nods, as if any of this makes a difference. "Noted."

When he speaks, she blinks up at him, the slightly dazed film lifting from her eyes, and her lips tilt self-aware. "I wonder," she says, changing the subject completely, "where you were for all that time. Before. You disappeared and never came back."

"I came back," he corrects. "I just didn't bother to approach you personally about it. I didn't know that you'd care."

"It was a blow to my pride more so than to my feelings." She brings her neat, manicured nails up to her mouth, curling them lightly against her lips. "I don't have feelings, didn't you know?" Her fingers are shaking.

"Kiyomi," he starts, prepared to steer her back onto the subject of the case at hand.

Instead, she steers herself. " _I'm not crazy_ ," she snaps, then stiffens abruptly, "is what someone would say before they tell you what I'm about to tell you next. _I'm not crazy_. It sounds like overcompensation, doesn't it?" She folds her arms across her chest, bending down into herself.

It does, a bit.

"And what are you going to tell me next?" Light leads, pen tapping out a soft rhythm on the page, drawing the moment closer with every _tap-tap-tap_. Crazy or not, he needs answers. He needs a suspect description, he needs - 

"Well, to start with," Takada says, in one long breath, like she'd been building it up that way, "it had red eyes."

 

\---

 

The monument of panic that rises up in him at the sight of the abandoned handcuff chain hanging from the air conditioning unit is not quite overcome, but rather for the moment obscured, by the sound of a flush from the restroom a few yards down the hall.

L is thin and rumpled, a statue against the tile, standing in glints of afternoon light that have slipped in around corners and under doors. The dog is off the leash.

Okay, wolf, rather. Something mangy and feral, anyway.

Light looks at him and he looks at Light and the night before ruptures the air between them, making daytime hard to maneuver through. It feels like a rough morning after, even thought it's rounding three. L's hair is wet from the dripping sink, his skin looks rubbed raw - a shade of fluttery, young pink that's all foreign on him - and he's not wearing any pants. Just the plaid boxers Light had lent him and an off-white shirt that says 'To-Oh University' on it in big black celebratory letters that his mother had purchased for him in the spring.

Light walks the distance between them in quicker steps than he means to, like a sharp drop and the quick fall afterwards, ground flying up to meet him. L's got blood under his skin, bags under his eyes, fine muscle tone in his calves.

_I think it happens that I love you._

It had been very artless of him to say it. He ought not have said anything. Light wants to shove the words back in him with his mouth. He wants to ask how he'd gotten off the chain, whether he'd had this means of freedom all along. He wants to ask where Rem is, what L has been having her do. He wants to ask plenty of things. _How's your day been so far? Could you go for lunch? Can you still feel the burn from me inside you?_

L blinks at him expectantly, but eventually when nothing is forthcoming, opens his own mouth to speak up.

Light cuts him off abruptly, before he can get a word out. "Kaito Hidaka," he says, grabbing the first starting point that comes along. The one heaviest in his mind. He had originally intended to bring files, reports, evidence. The things they'd need to solve this case together. He'd forgotten all that. He'd forgotten.

"Yes?" L probes, when Light lapses into sharp silence again. Trying to get it all in a row, but it just doesn't fit. "What about him?"

"Not him," Light says, lifting an arm to grab L by the shoulder, a mechanical movement. The skin and sinew is warm under his hand. "He's not - he's dead. He's not the person doing this, killing these children."

L tilts his head, leading Light along like he'd led Takada. "Obviously. So then who is?"

The drip of the sink is unnerving, the whole building feels hollow and insubstantial, as if there are eyes looking through the walls. Eyes all around him, watching his world tear itself apart. God giveth, God taketh away.

"Not a person," Light says, swallowing, and just for the added twist of cruel humor to the drowning enormity of the situation, he adds, "I'm 90% certain."

 

\---

**tbc.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so that's a thing! is it just me or are we getting a plot or something? only took 21 chapters and 250k+ words but hey, better late then never. stay tuned for a big messy mix of L, light, B, mello, wedy, misa and all your friends in next week's (uh, month's?) episode of the death note fic that wouldn't end.
> 
> no but serious announcement: tomorrow i'm flying to california to stay with my long-distance girlfriend for 2 weeks, and as i haven't seen her in person since august, i'm probably going to be very busy and not so much with the writing-time. forgive me if chapter 22 takes a while to get out. i promise to try my best!
> 
> and once again, thank you for reading, and i would heartily appreciate hearing your thoughts


	22. st. anthony, come around

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M BACK BABYDOLL. okay, okay so i've been back from california since january 12th, but i had to finish up this fic that in wrote for a dn exchange i was hosting on tumblr, and i only got back to writing nights after that, which is why this chapter is so late. i'm still just as committed to it as ever - if not more so - and i just hope you guys enjoy the plot developments as they come.
> 
> lots of wedy + mello + b action going down this chapter. apologies to the readers that aren't feeling them so much, or just miss the heavy lxlight. apologies for beyond birthday in general? what a little dweeb, i swear. anyway, the title of the chapter is from a prayer to st. anthony (the patron saint of lost things and seekers) that my very catholic mother used to say all the time when i was a kid. from what i remember it went: "please saint anthony come around, something's lost that can't be found."
> 
> alright, on we go. thank you all so much for reading and for any and all reviews. i couldn't do this without you and i love you guys.

_"He's more myself than I am."_  
\- Emily Bronte, _Wuthering Heights_

 

\---

 

"You're losing me," L says.

"No, I'm not," Light snaps, pacing back and forth. "You know exactly what I mean." He looks at himself in the mirror, straining in the dim to make out his own face. Two eyes, two ears, one mouth; see, hear, speak; what was that saying about evil?

L walks over to loiter behind him, looming just past his shoulder, the way Ryuk has done almost every morning for nearly a year, watching as he'd brushed his teeth, or shaven, or simply studied the dips and contours of his own face in the hard hum of the bathroom light. But he hasn't seen Ryuk since last night, nor Rem, either. Something's wrong. Something more than the usual wrong.

"I do know what you mean," L agrees, "but as I make a general rule of doubting both your sanity and your practicality, I'm not placing its accuracy particularly high in my estimation." He puts a hand on Light's shoulder, pale and cool from the water, like that of an animated and supremely annoying corpse.

Light spins around abruptly, yanking L off of him, but maintaining a tight grip around his wrist without really meaning to.

"This is serious, L. There isn't time to be cute and hateful. Have you not noticed that I've yet to remark on the fact that you're off the chain? Or ask about it?" He tugs him closer in a sharp yank. "It's because, right now, _I don't care_. I don't have time to. People are dying and if I don't stop it - "

"People are always dying," L counters, twitching like he's going to jerk out of Light's grasp, but instead, after a seeming moment of deliberation, wraps his own fingers around the hand locked tight on his. A violent gesture turned into hand-holding. "Often," he continues, "because you've killed them."

Light blinks at him. Well, _yes_. Yes, they've been over this a dozen times. Light doesn't know why it bears remarking now of all times, but he thinks L is probably trying to make a point. As if because he kills, he can't save. As if he can't have both.

Which is just not true. He can have anything that he has the will to take for himself.

With that in mind, he frowns squarely at L and says, "You love me."

There's a barely a pause in between before L nods. "Yes," he says, "I love you."

There's a stroke of his thumb along the inside of Light's wrist, and for a moment he thinks it's a threat - but, no. It's affection. A gesture of comfort. It feels good, sending a warm shiver through the back of his mind and wouldn't it be easy to just dissolve into that? Forget the world and the bodies and the harsh light of day. He almost wants to, his shoulders thrum with it - who even cares about the world? - but then L says something else:

"Let it go."

Another stroke along his wrist, but Light has already frozen stock still, frowning into L's mirrored eyes, and he jerks out of reach just as quickly as he'd attached himself. "I can't."

_Who even cares about the world?_ Oh right. He does.

L stares at him, and this is the point at which, were he keeping up the game, he'd tilt his head and pluck his lip and blink senselessly at Light, like some sort of confused child. But that seems to all have been washed out of him by now, worn at like rocks by the sea, smoothed down to his barest temperament and left like that to wallow. Light's absence, on his busy days, his hours and hours away, must do more to deconstruct L than his presence.

Light finds that it's the opposite in his case. When L is not there, he is only a shadow, a vague, sickly thing by which to measure his devotion to the cause. To the world. When he's there, though, he fills up the room, fills up Light, seeping into every corner and making a bloody, tearing, quiet mess of things.

Can't let him. _Get out, get out._ Can't. He has far too much work to do. He has to save the world.

He turns back to the mirror, reflection clearer now that his eyes have adjusted more fully to the dark, and he focuses on building the picture of himself that he needs to see, that he needs to be in order for Kira to do anything serious.

There's a vague moment when he thinks L is going to pitch a fit, go into the morals and the ethics and the romances and all the complex, dirty rot that he loves to fling around to tangle Light up, making it hard to hold onto his convictions - but he doesn't.

"What happened?" is all he asks, slipping firmly into business mode. Greatest detective in the world, after all.

Light doesn't turn away from the mirror. "Three more children went missing last night, two more today. That's too many to make any practical sense in the first place, and in the second - there was - someone saw something. A woman. Watari gave me the report and I went to speak with her at police headquarters. She told me about red eyes and too-long limbs and something ferocious and inhuman in an alley, carrying the bodies of two dead children. She was terrified." He turns back to L. "She was telling the truth."

"Red eyes," L murmurs, face sternly blank.

"Shinigami eyes," Light affirms, and L's gaze jerks sharply aware.

"A bit of a leap. There's every possibility that this woman has watched a few too many horror movies and got it in her head to garner some publicity with a fantastical stunt."

"You think I didn't consider that? I'm not a beginner, L," he huffs, frustratedly. Why can't he just believe him? Why can't he just listen to what Light tells him and nod like a good little soldier, like the rest of them? Usually Light finds his devil's advocation charming, but right now he hasn't got time for it. "I told you, she was telling the truth. She refused to even tell the cops anything she told me, was too afraid of them calling her crazy or it ruining her reputation."

L frowns, turning to pace, ruffled and still lacking pants, but mind seemingly shot off elsewhere. "And what makes you so special?" he asks. "Besides the obvious, of course," he adds, looking Light up and down with a glint of some of last night's heady attraction present. It's gone in a moment. No time for that.

"I'm not you," Light snaps, "I didn't fuck it out of her. I - she knows me. We dated, briefly, at the start of the year."

Saying so feels like reciting someone else's biography.

"Name?" L asks, steps slowing down. He keeps circling his left wrist, working the tired joints and making new and bendable shapes. It's worn red and Light would like to put it against his mouth and suck the skin until it's raw and -

He doesn't have time for that. "It doesn't matter, we just - "

"Kotone Hama, Yui Imagawa, Kiyomi Takada, or Anzu Yoshida?" L rattles off the list of names like its printed somewhere in the room, and with the way his memory works - sharp and unfaltering, accounting for every detail with a precision that rivals Light's own - it may as well be.

Light just lifts an eyebrow. "Keeping a log or something?"

"I know your entire interpersonal history dating back to kindergarten, Light," L says, bringing his two index fingers up to press into the thin dips on the bridge of his nose, massaging the edge of his brow. "Does that surprise you? It shouldn't. Want to know who had a crush on you in secondary school? Because I have a data sheet somewhere at the headquarters and -"

"It was Takada, okay?" Light says, relenting only because it's more of a waste of time not to. "Satisfied? Is that information useful to you somehow?" He ruffles his hair irritably, then tries to make it lie flat again, frowning at the mirror.

"Yes, actually," L says. "Her grades were almost as good as yours and according to the data we collected, she's quite as equally stringent and joyless, too. The likelihood of her making something like this up is - " Light winces for the oncoming storm of nonsensical percentages; he is surprised when it doesn't hit - "well, I've no idea, really, but it's interesting, isn't it? I'm interested."

Light huffs a harsh laugh out to stream around in the dim between them. "Oh well, good, as long as your _interested_." Mikami is so right about him and it's disgusting, because Light knows and has always known, and he keeps trying to bleed and choke and _fuck_ it out of him, twist him into new, kinder shapes, but it never, never works. He balls his fists, shakes his head, moves or the room does, and suddenly L is much, much closer, backed against the wall and held there. "You love me, right? Isn't that what you said? Then why can't you just - "

"Be exactly what you want me to be?" L finishes for him. "That's the million dollar question, isn't it? Well, actually I have a million dollars, so maybe more like - "

Light considers kissing him to make him quiet, but ultimately ends up slipping a hand over his mouth, covering him and muffling the following words into a comical drone. He leans in and kisses L on the cheek, his annoyance splitting off at its roots into affection and appreciation and a hollow little love that breathes in L's cold spearmint scent and steadies itself.

"Help me?" he asks the flesh, cleaner than he remembers it, scrubbed raw and new.

L nods against him. Eyes closed, lashes making blue shadows on his face. He looks like a peaceful corpse. Light removes his hand, stroking the pads of his fingers along his jaw, and that makes him somewhat perverse, doesn't it? Doesn't L always.

"Alright," he says, pushing off the wall and around Light, and going for his jeans where they're piled loosely in the corner - which is rather a disappointment. He pulls them on in a couple of quick jerks. "Tell me everything she told you, then go back to headquarters to collect any new information and get me the autopsy reports again. All of them. I've only seen about half, and I didn't have anything supernatural in mind at the time, so a second sweep would do some good."

He doesn't glance in the mirror once as he dresses, doesn't even seem to notice it's there, but Light watches his reflection move in perfect time with his bony white figure. Like a really awful dance routine. He's in love. That's the thing. The world's coming apart and he's in love and neither of these things should be allowed to happen, but here are his feet on the tile floor of a hallway bathroom, in the building of a man who'd earned himself a death sentence a long time ago and should be serving it.

"Is your Shinigami with you? Ryuk, isn't it? Yes, Rem told me, though I've never seen him and would like to, so if you could arrange it, I wouldn't be averse. Oh, and about Rem, Misa came by looking for her earlier. Not sure what that's about but someone should probably get on it, yes? A lost death god is likely quite a bit more trouble than one accounted for."

He bends his back, cracks his shoulders, stretches up to the ceiling and down to his toes, then turns in one smooth, agile motion to the door. Light wants to go with him without following his lead, and so he makes a point of storming on ahead, though twisting to look over his shoulder and observe all the while.

Rem's lost, it seems, and Ryuk isn't around and hasn't been since last night, which is strange. They'd both disappeared at the same time, then? Or gone somewhere together? The Shinigami which may or may not be terrorizing the public of Japan - though how it's managing to rape, Light has no idea; or at least, is trying not to - no doubt has something to do with it. Finding one of them should be put at the top of the list, but then he has to play detective with the taskforce, so maybe he should put Misa on it?

It's only with that thought that he tunes back into what L is saying, with just enough time to react to a quick movement and the bent bit of metal that he catches out of the air.

"You should probably tell your girlfriend not to wear bobby pins over here anymore," L mumbles slyly, walking past where Light is stopped, toward the air conditioning unit on the wall.

Light winces with the noise as he snaps the chain back on his wrist.

 

\---

 

Their plane lands just as evening comes on, Tokyo lighting up with little sparks beneath them, only to flare fully as night drifts into place during the hum-drum half hour that it takes them to disembark. Mello gets a bag strap across the face and several apologetic elbows in the ribs - and what he thinks is a hand steadying his shoulder from B - but he just frowns and shuffles through perfunctorily, not letting the excitement or the victory or the freedom rise up out of him the way he'd like to be able to.

They're not there yet. They're not even past security, and who knows if Wedy's planning some grand escape for the parking lot, or if Watari's given Japanese Customs a wanted poster of B, or if L is even here anymore. They're not there yet.

But still, they're closer, and that's something.

There's a screaming child at baggage claim and a man in a wheelchair who gets to go before everyone else, and the three of them stand there like mismatched family vacationers, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible and failing quite miserably at it. They're each in some form of leather or another and if Mello worked in the airport, he'd finger them as criminals at first glance.

Wedy keeps flipping open her compact and checking her reflection, the click of the latch making noisy patterns that seep into the din of the crowd. Mello scratches his arms. He just wants this part over with. B is the only one of them who isn't on edge, and that's likely because he's more or less holding the proverbial knife against which this whole situation is balancing.

He rolls his eyes after the fifth touch-up, snatching the little circle out of Wedy's hands with reflexes that seem quite improbable for how he slumps there afterwards, inanimate, brow crumpled.

"Doesn't do something, does it?" he asks, long fingers plucking open the mirror, checking it up and down, and then snapping it closed again. "Send a bat signal? Or reflect laser beams off the NPA headquarters or something? Is it a super secret spy mirror?"

Wedy looks at B, completely flat-eyed. "Yes, it sends radio waves to the mothership. Prepare for the invasion of Earth." She rolls her eyes and pulls her jacket tighter, glance darting off to the well-lit exit signs lining escalators at every side.

At least, Mello thinks they say _exit_. He's not that good with Kanji.

"Just checking," B mumbles, flipping the mirror back open to preen theatrically in front of it. "You never know who's watching you with little beady eyes, just waiting to eat up your heart when you're not looking." He grins at himself flirtatiously.

Mello feels like he should put him on a leash or something. "Don't - say shit like that in public."

"What's the matter, sonny?" B chuckles, throwing an arm over his shoulder like some sort of sleazy uncle figure trying to get in good with the kids these days. "Not embarrassing you, am I?"

Mello shrugs out of his reach. "Get off me," he mumbles, arms crossing over his chest. B laughs, but lets him go.

"Well, yes," Wedy puts in, turning in her thoroughly uncomfortable looking heels to face them, skin a cool pallor in the flutter of the evening fluorescents, "it will be quite the humiliation when you get us taken in by security for suspicious behavior."

"Suspicious? Me?" B mimes astonishment, but drops the expression within a moment. "Look, don't you two worry your pretty Aryan heads about it, Papa's got it all under control. The most we could get done for would be drug-running, and only because Mihael here is twitching like a junkie." He pats Mello's cheek with one loose and strangely affectionate hand. "Look alive, babydoll, or are you not familiar with the term 'anal cavity search?'"

Mello freezes. He does not want to answer that question. If B expects him to find that funny, after - after Watson - no. No, of course B doesn't. B wants his skin to crawl. That's what B does. Puppets and strings and all that rot.

Luckily, Wedy takes up the mantle of annoyance and speaks for him. "I'm sure not half so familiar as you are," she says, with a combative smirk.

Beyond laughs almost too loudly. "Oh dear me, could I tell you some stories." His eyebrows are popped like he wants to.

_No stories, please_ , Mello thinks, and maybe the Hail Marys and Our Fathers of his youth are finally coming through with the heavenly benefits, because just as B quirks his lips open to continue, the next round of luggage comes out and Mello interrupts him with a pointed finger. "There's your bag."

B tips his eyes to the side, stepping forward as Wedy lays open her palm for the compact. He holds it out without looking back, but just as her manicured nails are about to make contact, his fist tightens, squeezing the plastic and glass into a crumbling mess. He dumps it into Wedy's outstretched hand.

"Can't be too careful," he sing-songs, before going to collect his luggage.

 

\---

 

Quillish keeps his expression utterly neutral. If he were the type for self-satisfied grins, this would be just the occasion. B's voice crackles and shivers through the speakers of his headset, pale flesh covering the screen before it goes silver and staticy, connection severing. But it's enough.

_Can't be too careful._

Too right. That's the boy, always miles ahead of the game, laying out the playing field with his footprints. Maybe he's no cleverer than L, but his inclinations are tilted in a much more expansive direction, and that gives him a whole subset of capabilities of the sort that L has left untapped, for fear of what they would spawn. Beyond Birthday is, of course, an abominable murderer and he could never be the world's greatest detective in any non-disastrous capacity, but he's still an extremely valuable player to have on your side.

Or, failing that, aiming for the same end that you are.

Aiber is twitching irritably in front of the traffic feed again, and even though calming him is a long shot, Quillish pulls off his headset and murmurs, "Not long now," into the pale glow of the humming air.

His thoroughly sprayed and oiled hair doesn't move a centimeter as he turns to face Quillish, expression blank of anything but eroded hope and struggling alcoholism. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Quillish doesn't reply, just shoots him a keen smile and polishes his glasses. Not long now at all. His operative is town, and things can only go forward from here, wherever the path will ultimately lead them.

 

\---

 

"Light! Hey Light! This is gonna be great, isn't it?" Ryuk grins at him upside down, hanging from the doorframe, as Light walks in. The apartment is emptier than he remembers it, Misa's things cleared almost fully out by now, but the unruly mass of the two death gods taking up the space with their shadowless bodies makes things feel a little more close quartered all the same.

"What's going on?" he asks, directing the question to Rem, because that's where he's more likely to find solid answers. Rem has emotional stake; she can be manipulated. The only point of hold that Light has on Ryuk is that of entertainment value, and at the moment that stock seems to be worthless, given that he's having a rollicking time of it for no conceivable reason.

Rem says what he expects, but doesn't know what to do with all the same: "Shinigami."

His fists clench. There are notebook pages in his jacket pocket, but they're useless right now. There are plenty of relevant questions to be asked, the whos and the wheres and the very important whys, but he goes straight to the one that shudders in him, making his blood work like fuel in a machine.

"How do I kill it?" he breathes, trying to even himself out.

Rem doesn't laugh like Ryuk, doesn't seem to be physically capable of it, but she does make a disparaging and relatively equivalent sound. "You don't. Not unless you can convince them to save a human with their Note, and seeing as they don't seem heavily concerned with the value of human life, I wouldn't rely heavily upon that option."

Light closes his eyes, pinching his brow with two uneasy fingers. "You're sure it's a Shinigami?"

"Feels like one." Rem shrugs her already thoroughly hunched shoulders.

Ryuk laughs at the ceiling. "It's diluted, isn't it? Feels diluted to me. Not like the fellas at home at all."

"Where did it come from? I mean, how is it here?" Light demands, feeling aggravated by the air around him, the words in his throat. He stumbles into the bedroom, expecting - quite aptly - for them to follow him, and rooting through the documents in his desk drawer. _The Kaito Hidaka Case_ , the manilla folder says. He really needs to give it a new name, needs to stop clinging to corpses.

Rem hovers by the bed while he roots through the files he has. "We don't know."

"Well, how is it killing - how is it _raping_ people?" he snaps. "How is it doing this?" He gestures to the coroner's reports from a few weeks ago, brutal and disgusting and _of course it's a monster that's done this_. He'd said so all along. "Can Shinigami even - ugh, no, I don't want to know that."

Ryuk laughs uproariously.

"No," Rem says grimly. "At least, it's not the same as humans. We can, but it's - different. It's not about bodies. It's about the merging of spirits. It's quite foul, really, and generally looked down upon."

Light is so disgusted he can barely speak, but he manages it, waving the file at her with a trembling hand. "Does this look like _spirit_ to you? Does it?"

Rem is still and silent, but Ryuk laughs - horrible and uncomfortable, and has it always sounded like this, or is Light only just hearing the monstrousness now? - and says, "Nope!" He pops his 'p.'

"Then how?" he barks, probably making a racket through the whole apartment complex, but he doesn't care.

"We don't know," Rem says, grimly.

"And _why_?"

"We _don't know_."

He can feel it boiling in him, a rage that stems more from a strange and writhing _hurt_ than anything else. Betrayal, that's it. He feels betrayed. By a collection of paper and binding and pen scratches, but still. He holds the weapon of the gods, but it's turning back on him, biting the hands that feeds it names. His salvation, the key to the kingdom, the tool by which he was meant to save the world, to make everything okay - good and pure and golden like it should be - has brought along some of its friends, and they are not half so friendly.

He can't kill a Shinigami with the Note. He can't save any of those children with it, can't save the rest of them across the city, ripe for the picking. Not with his current strategy.

He straightens up, facing Rem as eye-to-eye as he can manage as Ryuk chuckles in the background. "Then tell me," Light breathes out, thick and measured, trying to keep himself from toppling into frantic demands, "what _do_ you know?"

 

\---

 

They have to chase off a few squatters from around the entrance - which B does with laudable joviality - but other than that, the place looks relatively untouched. Brimming dirty balconies and two rusted locks on the door, and they forgo them both to duck around the back and climb in through a low window. There are practically rungs carved out in the stone wall below it, and Mello leads the way up them on unsteady hands, following B's directions because he doesn't know what else he could do at this point.

Wedy comes next, taking what had been a challenge to Mello with loose palms and high-heeled steps and barely a breath of exertion, and B comes last, crowding them in like a flamboyant cattle herder. He doesn't even bother with the steps, just jerks himself up with one arm and swings over the sill easily. Even well-practiced as the movement evidently is, it shouldn't be possible. He's long and thin and skeletal, with no visible muscle. Not deceptively wiry like L, or broad-shouldered like Grady. He's fragile as a corpse; strong as a ghost.

Mello lands on his knees and is startled to find Wedy offering him a hand up. He takes it after a moment, though her expression is telling him not to make much of the gesture.

B's boots thud past him with thick, wide steps, as he turns slowly, arms outstretched at the wide, dark room. It smells like dust and wood, wet like a forest, and cold. Mello shivers, jerking his hand out of Wedy's to shove it hurriedly in his pocket.

"What is this place?" he asks B.

As his eyes adjust to the lighting, the answer to that question becomes obvious. He can make out shelves, lots of them, built into the walls and lined with books and papers and miscellaneous junk. Some of it is stacked in neat piles on the floor. It's always neat piles. It's like the room in London. It's a nest.

"Home," Beyond says, smile small and sharper than usual. He's gesturing around like they're supposed to be seeing something that they aren't. Something that he wants them to see.

It's different than the apartment, though, Mello realizes after a moment. Not just because the space is larger, airier, a full house instead of a cramped studio flat. Dank and strange and questionably hygienic as that room had been, it had still felt like part of the world. There had been street sounds from outside. It's silent here.

They're not even too far on the edges of the city, but somehow through the twists and mazes, they'd ended up in a dark, soundless little quarter where the only thing that seems to exist is the three of them.

Two of the them. It's questionable how much B actually exists.

"Whose home?" Wedy asks, stepping with soft clicks across the wood floors. "Yours?"

B ducks his head, moves toward her on slow feet. She looks as if she wants to back away, but doesn't. Mello wonders how her wounds are holding up, but nothing shows on her face.

"One of," he says. "From before the beginning." He stops halfway to Wedy, drawing his finger along the wall and collecting a thick mound of dust. He sniffs it, nose wrinkling like a big, dumb dog. But that's part of the act, isn't it? If anything, he's a big, smart dog. More like a hyena, really.

"Before Wammy's?" Mello asks, cautiously.

Beyond ignores the question. "I always thought I'd die here, you know?" He's turned to face the wall completely, finger stretching wide to trace a large shape in the dust, one that Mello can only make out the edges of in the dim. "Or maybe I just wanted to die here. I can't remember. There was a garden out front, and I would plant leaves and wait for flowers to grow, because I didn't understand. I didn't want to. I didn't want to know the ways of the world or the truth about anything."

Mello's almost disappointed when Wedy moves across the creaking floorboards to face B head on. The story doesn't sound half done, but she doesn't seem to care.

"Charming as it is, can we save the tragic backstory for another time?" she murmurs, voice low and surely well suited to quiet nights in quiet places like this. "I don't care about your childhood botanical interests. L isn't going to find himself."

B stops, finger sliding down and off the wall, dropping hazy clouds with it and making the air heavier. His expression when he looks at Wedy is far less lucid than usual. "That's quite a layered statement, Merrie."

She rolls her eyes, leaning back on the wall, not far from B's indistinct finger-paint masterpiece. "Can we please cut the tortured poetical act?" she grits, then shoots her glance in a different direction. "Help me out, Mello."

He likes that she calls him that. It's a bit of a trade-off of sorts, Wedy for Mello, and Merrie and Mihael get shelved for the mad and the cruel to play around with. Her presence is like Syd's in a way, an ally through sanity and easier to get on with, but far harder to trust than B.

Does he trust B?

Does he have a choice?

Shrugging, he says, "I actually prefer it to the whole… literal cutting bit." He doesn't look at Wedy, doesn't like disagreeing with her, but doesn't like going along in whatever direction he's pulled, either. He's done that since B had pulled him up off Watson's floor, but only because he has to. He should be allowed his tiny, thoughtless rebellions.

Beyond laughs, limbs twitching with a queer looseness as he titters closer to stand over Wedy, eyelashes fluttering, eyes lighting with easy amusement. "He's on my side," he sing-songs at her, neck cricking a bit as he leans down to breathe the words against her skin.

"Really?" Wedy says, humor bending sharp in the tint of her lips, and Mello has half a moment to panic, half a moment to understand what she's doing. "Want to test that theory?"

Half a moment to decide not to try and stop it.

That half passes, and then she's thrusting her concealed hand forward, what looks like a… tube of lipstick sticking out of B's stomach, blade sliding out to show a dark and brilliant red that fades to black in the material of his shirt. Wedy doesn't pause for a moment, just stabs him again, shoving back in like she's lost something in his chest and is feeling around for it with a knife.

An almost impressed wonder shows on B's face as he watches her kill him. Mello watches her kill him. Mello doesn't do a thing. Mello can't breathe.

Over Beyond's shaking shoulders, Wedy meets Mello's eyes with a stern indistinctness, as if she may not even be there. As if the hand driving the blade in again and again is detached from any will of hers. She could rightfully be angry. She could rightfully take her revenge, yell, cry, tear him apart - all with fair justification. The coldness is what makes the kill into a crime, a betrayal.

B looks like he tries to say something, some clever last words - not last, not really, not ever - but death comes on stronger, a wasting disease, and in a moment he's slumping away from Wedy, falling face forward on the floor. Barely a pause, and she's striding forward to hold her hand out to Mello, nodding at the window.

He looks at her fingers, manicured and wet in places with blood. He can't move.

Rolling her eyes, Wedy takes a few steps forward, as if trying to corral him.

"He doesn't die," Mello snaps, stepping back. He looks at B's body on the ground, thinks _get up, get up, get up,_ at the same time as he wonders wouldn't it be nice if he didn't? "He won't - "

"He doesn't need to," Wedy says, grasp stretching just far enough to catch him around the the arm. "Come on." She shoves him toward the window and Mello lets her, stumbling on worn feet, eyes locked on B's motionless body. He's face down, pressed to the dirty floor. Always thought he'd die here.

Usually, he thinks right.

"And go where?" Mello shoots back after a moment, mind catching up with itself and taking hold of his limbs, muscle control regained and rigid. He jerks roughly out of Wedy's reach, backing up toward where Beyond is collapsed, next to the indecipherable design on the wall. He looks at it, then back at Wedy. "I can't - "

"Watari's in the city," she says, cutting him off and wheeling around to tug open B's suitcase and root through the mess of drab clothes - most of them jeans and t-shirts - coming up with nothing more than a laptop and a couple of flashlights. She tosses one to Mello. "I know how to find him from here. You'll get protection and snacks and, I don't know, a remote control airplane. Isn't that what kids like?"

Mello takes the torch, flipping it on almost immediately and shining it about the room, trying to get his bearings with a sharper look at his surroundings. The ruptured dust glows in the cold, false light. She's right. She has a point, anyway, or at least more of one than the man on the floor does, or Mello's heart beating up a staccato racket in his chest.

They should go. Beyond will wake up any moment now - he has to wake up, he always _wakes up_ \- and the longer they dawdle here the more likely they are to be caught up and skinned alive and hung across B's childhood home as holiday decorations, but - 

The wide beam of hazy light catches on the wall beside him, illuminating the pattern that B had mapped out. Not a pattern, though - a letter. Large, spreading across the length of a foot or two in either direction, there's a very clear, well constructed gothic _L_ traced out in the dust. It's missing a few strokes here and there, incomplete. Its artist cut down before he could finish.

Mello swallows. "I can't," he says.

It's possibly very, very stupid, but on the other hand, it's stupidity that he has signed on for, that he has put stock into - time and effort, and maybe even a bit of fondness. It feels too much like a betrayal of his own to leave B like this, on the floor of some dusty room, without even a goodbye. Not just because of the undoubtably violent repercussions - although there's a fine chance Watari has the means to protect against those - but because it simply doesn't sit right with Mello.

He can't go. He just can't.

Wedy huffs, stepping with an exhausted unease - and it's only now, for the first time all day, that he sees the pain etched in her frame, making her frailer and tenser, taking her strength and draining it out. "Christ, you geniuses are a load of _fucking morons_. Did you forget? Holding the gun while he cut me up? Or do you just not care?"

Her mouth is set in a joyless line of amusement, and it's fucked up, because Mello doesn't want to do this, he doesn't want to be the type of person who does something like this, but - 

"I care. I care," he insists, but his glance jolts to B before he can stop it. "I can't - he _saved_ me. I owe him."

Yes, make that the story. Makes him seem honorable, instead of just small and afraid and rife with weakness. Not affection. He doesn't care about B. He's just used to him. And he needs him. He looks at the L on the wall and knows that this is the only possible way he knows how.

Wedy chuckles, harsh and unpleasant, finally throwing down the useless mess of clothes that she'd been fishing through, obviously coming up without any weapons. Still has her lipstick knife, though, however she snuck it by in the first place, and Mello crosses his arms, straightening carefully as he remembers it.

"First rule of living in the world:" she says, putting the words to him like a worn out teacher would when going over the same lesson again and _again_ , "only pay debts when they're enforced. Second rule?" She marches straight across the room to stand facing Mello with violent frustration. "Stay as far away as possible from murderous psychopaths. You're zero for two right now, kid." Breathing harshly, she shakes her head.

Mello doesn't speak. He doesn't know what to say, because she's right and he's not going to pretend that she isn't. No time for pride, not now.

Her voice lowers, going more reasonable, and either her strategy is shifting, or she's just been worn down to the truth. "Look, he is _not on your side_ ," she murmurs. "I don't know what he did for you, but I know what he did to those people in the file. Little girl and _he took her eyeballs._ "

"I know," Mello says, "I know what he is." He's nearly cornered against the wall now. "But you don't understand, I don't have anything else."

Wedy moves like a tired pillar with a trap of a mind, backing him up and gripping him by the collar of his t-shirt. "You don't have _anything_. You won't ever have anything. Not him, not L. None of us ever do. Everyone is alone." Her hands soften, smoothing distractedly over the material of his shirt. "So the question becomes, would you rather be alone with him, or with me?"

The question is ugly; the answer is uglier. Wedy is a fine, fierce warrior, with the axe and the arm to swing it, to get it done. But she's here because it's her job, working for a paycheck just like the mindless millions. Mello doesn't have a job. Not yet. He's here because he needs to be, because everything in him and every bit of him that exists is dependent on finding L, on winning, coming out ahead.

And B, for whatever reason and by whatever machinations, seems to be in the same situation.

Mello looks at the wall behind him. He's mussed the patterns, clouded the _L_ up with body shapes - shoulders and a spine and the resigned drop of his head against the stonework. He looks at B on the floor, too, all full of stab wounds. Like a parade float stuck with holes, now just a mess of rubber and warped personification. Goodbye, helium. Goodbye, pulse.

"I can't leave him," he says, shoving Wedy back and off of him - equally guilty and grateful that she's working with injuries. He stands up straighter, tilting his body so that his back is now towards the window that they'd climbed in. There's probably another way out, but it's a symbolic gesture more than anything, so he doesn't fuss over it. "I - and I can't let you leave. We're not alone. Fuck that nihilistic bullshit. We're a team. We came here together. We're all looking for the same person. This 'every man for himself' shit isn't going to get anything done."

He's breathing more heavily than he should be. This whole _caring_ thing is taking a lot out of him.

Wedy looks as if she's about to hit him, or at least knock him to the side, but the grit and the power in her expression, coasting through the lines of her body, drains with a slow glance to the side. When she looks back at him, she's shaking her head.

"Whereas teamwork and understanding are a surefire way to victory? God, you're really in the wrong business, kid." She steps back, though, position going more defensive, knife clutched in her hand like a last line of protection. She nods to Beyond where he's collapsed on the floor. "He should be awake by now. Hey, Rocky Horror, quit playing dead!"

Mello wants to laugh at her, tell her to _shut up_ , but there's a wild hope in him that writhes around, waiting, waiting, _waiting_.

Nothing happens.

Then it does.

In half an instant, B is up on his feet again, one large palm to the wall, the other running up and down his abdomen, wiping at the blood and making faces of dissatisfaction. "I liked this shirt," he says, pulling it by the hem and examining the thin slashes through every odd bit of material.

"You're - " Mello starts, but of course, of course. He's fine. Well, no, he's completely fucked in the head and probably some otherworldly satanic creature, but - he's alive. He's not gone. He hasn't left. Mello swallows down his relief, forces himself to frown. "You took your sweet time getting up."

He shrugs, shaking his hair out twitchily, tossing off death like a dog out of the water. "Can't blame me for being curious as to how things would turn out, can you, sport?" He blinks his eyes, narrows them, and shoots them backwards over his shoulder to look Wedy up and down, where her stance is rigid with defeat. "Like I said," he murmurs, voice flowy and sharp, " _he's on my side_."

"I'm not," Mello protests, but is widely ignored.

Wedy has still got her blade clutched tight in her bone-white fingers. "Are you going to kill me now?" she asks.

"No!" Mello snaps, even though the question is obviously not directed at him. Before he can really think it through, he's moving forward, tugging at B's arm, as if that's going to hold him back from doing anything. As if there's anything that can hold him. Death can't even keep a grip for long. Still, Mello repeats, "No," even as he's shaken off.

But Beyond curls his lips, body moving ragged and free, limbs loose with a laughing haze of afterlife, and agrees. "No," he says, walking the few feet between himself and Wedy on skipping feet. "No, like little Mihael said, we're a team." He lifts a hand up, as if he's going to touch her, but doesn't. "All for one and one for all," he sing-songs.

Then he reels back his fist and slams it into her face.

Wedy flies back with the blow, connecting to the far wall, and Mello winces with her impact. Beyond must have one hell of a right hook, because she looks like she's just been struck by a bull dozer, eyes hazy and pained for a moment, before they flash sharply with adrenaline. She's all wounds and bandages, the slick smell of flesh and blood, but she pushes herself up with what seems like little effort, a coldness contorting her expression, and steps on her high heels back to where B is.

If he had attempted to dodge her blow, he would have done so easily, but he doesn't, just stands there as she bends at the hip, sending her other leg out to connect in a powerful sidekick, that sends B stumbling back several paces, a rip like joy on his face.

"There's a girl," he says, regaining his balance and grabbing her by the arms, pulling her up close and invading her space like it's his own to have. He could throw her off, knock her to the ground and beat her bloody. Take her eyeballs, her bones, the way he so likes to do. He doesn't. Instead, he leans in and says, with a soft and fluttering voice that Mello can only just make out, "Mihael is going to change your bandages now, and I am going to get us a few coffees from the mini-mart down the block."

He does touch her face this time, fingers wavering against her skin like he's not sure what he's touching. Abruptly, he pulls them off, letting Wedy go and backing up into himself. He turns to look at the wall, at his ruined mural. _L_ is just a few smudges now, but he stares at it like one stares at a masterpiece, awed and unsure of what to feel.

"Then," he says, very quietly, "we're going to get to work."

 

\---

 

Yagami is shaken up. He must be. Either that or it's a trap.

No, no, what does he need a trap for? He's got no idea Aiber's watching him on the traffic cameras, and no need to lay a false trail, seeing as his true route has been left utterly untraceable. Until now.

It's a section of abandoned buildings in Ikebukuro, not the best place to stash a hostage, given the gangs that circulate that part of the district, but anything's worth a shot at this point, and Light's rather hurried trajectory appears to come straight from it. Aiber scrolls back through the footage again and again, scrutinizing the barely restrained panic on the face of his target with the sort of relish that is probably better saved for victorious gloating. It's there, though, and it's clear that if Light Yagami were ever going to slip up, this could be the qualifying moment.

With that vague and withering spark of hope lighting up his mind, Aiber goes to work. It doesn't take a very long internet search to find reference to the location in question within an old news headline, citing it as the scene of one of L's operations from years past. Takes even less time to cycle through the system, while Watari has stepped into the other room to brief Aizawa, and find that L, as a business entity, currently owns said building, continuing to pay yearly for its upkeep.

That's a very ridiculous, very unlikely thing for Yagami to do - stash L in his own building - but as Kira has, from the start, qualified as both of those things in relatively equal measure, it's a lead worth pursuing.

 

\---

 

Kira, if he is truly the college student with the silly name and the police background, is embarrassingly easy to find.

They're in a hire car - not stolen, because B's got a selection of fraudulent credit cards in his coat pocket that are now going to good use - Wedy handcuffed in the back again, Mello holding a new gun even though he's still mostly fuzzy on how to use it, and Beyond tearing down backstreets and one-ways at the wheel, like this is some fifty pence arcade game and he's the high scorer. Tokyo is thin and packed to the gils, but once they fade from the shopping districts into the dimly lit neighborhoods the traffic dwindles and then it's just them and the night.

And one Light Yagami.

B pulls up at the curb across the street from his apartment complex and he and Mello squint out the passenger window, as if searching for signs of fortresslike defenses, a la Castle Dracula. Wedy lights another cigarette and examines her nails, steadier and comfortably condescending now that she's got a pack in her hand again, nevermind the violence nor the humiliation of defeat. Nevermind the betrayal that's been split and divvied up between them in jagged, uneven pieces.

Or maybe not _nevermind_. Maybe she'll mind later.

Mello glances back at her, trying to sooth a sort of peace into his expression, an apology for his part in the madness. _Sorry I held the nail while he hammered it in_. As if it makes a difference.

He clears his throat, forcing his tone deeper than it naturally is. "You're sure he's Kira?"

Wedy doesn't look at him, or the window, or the billowing wraps of blue-white smoke hazing in the glow of the streetlights. She shrugs. "Wouldn't stake my life on it. But then, I wouldn't stake my life on anybody's anything." She huffs and puffs again, but doesn't blow the house down. It isn't her job. The wolf is at the wheel. "L would, though, and did. So don't take my word for it, take his."

Mello doesn't know what to say to that, so he doesn't, just turns back to the front and crosses his arms against the creeping November cold, eyes flicking back to the apartments. He's number 203. One bedroom, nice view, built in cable. Just one guy, barely more than a kid. A nobody in the crowd. Nice looking, Mello supposes. In his yearbook photo he'd been wearing a turtleneck and smiling the easy smile of children who grow up with parents, and a house, and a home. He's got a kid sister. Sayu is a comparatively normal name, not showy like Light, or _Kira_.

Killer, killer, killer.

And yet they're betting L is alive? Why? Because B wants to and Mello wants to and Wedy doesn't give enough of a fuck either way to sway them? Because it's easier to run the race if the finish line isn't pushing up daisies?

In the seat next to him, Beyond is examining his own fingers, as if for clues. "I don't have his words," he says to the air, like it's aimed at nobody, even though it's obviously a response to Wedy. "Old ones, yes, from a long time ago, but those have gone stale, you know? I need something to live on." He flexes the joints in his hands.

Mello doesn't understand, or doesn't want to, and it's easier anyhow to keep L and B in their own separate corners of his mind. One is the destination, and one is just the journey. He doesn't have time to think about the point at which they will inevitably meet.

From the back, Wedy is nowhere as coy. "L's no good for subsistence," she says, quite bluntly, facing B as well as she can when his back is to her.

He turns slowly, like a monster movie but backwards, and Mello can practically feel the rising chorus of overly dramatic music tingling up his spine. B blinks. He leans over the back of his seat, hand going out the cup her face the way he seems to like to do. She's not half as fair as usual, not done up in power-white and red lips. They'd confiscated her make-up after the whole stabbing ordeal, not sure if she'd been hiding anymore weapons and not overly keen to find out the hard way. There's a bruise blooming purple on her face where he'd hit her, but she doesn't look like a battered woman. She is a soldier, nursing her battle wounds with a cigarette and the unclean night.

Beyond's fingers are skeletal against her skin, like the dead reaching up out of the ground to paw at a beauty queen. Horror movie cliches all cut to ribbons, lying there on the floor between the three of them, soaking up the new-car smell.

He strokes her face and she shudders and Mello pretends he isn't watching.

"One of us would know better than the other," B murmurs, and Mello tries to make his mind blur it out, but he's trained too quick for that and the answers come easily. L, L, it's always L. "And it wouldn't be you." Pulling back, he smiles a big, sweet serial killer grin - cheshire cat teeth and an almost kindness - and takes his hands off of her. "Let me do my job, Merrie. Let me do what I was meant to do."

"You're out of your mind," she says, taking another puff, then, with a gentle deliberateness, putting out her cigarette on the translucent skin of B's knuckles. The sparks die down, hissing for half a second before they're snuffed out, and Beyond doesn't even blink at the pain.

"I think," he says, picking his hand up and examining the wound, "that I'd like to fall in love with you, if I had the time."

Mello rolls his eyes, but he doesn't mind it. Wedy laughs quietly and he knows then and there that he'd miss her if she died. Knows that if B could, he'd miss him, too. More. Not more than he misses Matt, or his warm bed, or three meals a day, but still - more than he should.

Something about the general agreeableness of the moment must snap B to life, because he's opening the car door and stepping out onto the sidewalk in the flash of the next moment. On his own side, Mello shakes his thoughts out of their cinching rings, into the loose ease of action, and follows the movement.

"So," he says, "what's the plan?"

"Plan?" B asks, raising an eyebrow as if shocked by the question. He slings his arm casually over the open car door. "I go in, get to know Kira, and he tells me where I can find L." He dusts his hands together. "Easy peasy, throw in a lemon, and you know the rest."

"And by 'get to know,' you mean… "

B grins. "Just that I hope he didn't want his cleaning deposit back. Bloodstains are a bitch to get out. Believe me, I would know."

"I believe you," Mello says, closing his door and walking around the front of the car to face B, summoning courage - or else laudable stupidity - from somewhere low down deep and quivering. "But I don't like this. It seems… too easy. What, you torture him a little bit and he just gives it up? Really? I mean, if L couldn't crack him in the last year, what makes you think that you're just gonna waltz in and get a location before someone comes by to check up on him?"

B tilts his head, more present than he's been in hours, seeming to funnel back into himself at Mello's prodding. "Who says L didn't crack him?" he asks.

Mello frowns, scoffing, one hand tracing over the barrel of the gun in his pocket. "Well, he's in a middle class apartment and not jail - that is if he's even home right now, which he may not be - so I think that says something."

Wedy's watching them from the backseat, like they're the nothing-good on tv.

"You think?" B repeats back to him, eyes laughing. "Yes, see, this is why I'm the brains of the operation, and you're the pretty face." He pats Mello's cheek in a way utterly unlike how he'd touched Wedy, a lazy cast off of a movement, body language shoving Mello aside like a very moveable, though mildly annoying, impediment.

Mello doesn't let him get away with it. He makes himself more than _mild_.

"Is that what I am?" he asks, swinging out of B's reach to take a wide stance, a small, sharp-shouldered blockade. "Is that why I'm here?"

"This is no time to get philosophical, lover boy," B titters out on a wave of amusement, but Mello can tell he's agitated by the hold up. That's good. That elevates mild to a swell medium.

"I'm not," Mello says, voice curiously calm. "I don't mean _on this earth_ , I mean _with you_. Why did you even find me? Why'd you save me from - why'd you stop him? Watson. He was gonna kill me." Mello keeps himself outwardly level, even though inwardly it hurts with a familiar salty sharpness behind the eyes.

B tilts his head, finally looking at him. "Was gonna do more than that."

"Right," Mello breathes, "right. Rape. Let's say it. Let's talk about it. I was a victim. I was a victim and I was going to be victimized and I couldn't stop it, but _you did_. And don't think I'm not grateful, because even if Roger and them think I'm just some bratty kid who can't see anything outside himself, I owe you my fucking life." Ow, ow, it burns a little. Only pussies get misty, though, so he swallows it down. "I know that. I'm grateful. But I'm not _stupid_. You're the fucking criminal mastermind of the century - aside from maybe the guy in the apartment across the street, if that really is Kira in there - and you don't just do things without a purpose. So what's my purpose? Why am I here, B?"

Beyond stares at him for a long moment, facial muscles twitching, as if it's taking him a while to comprehend things. In a moment, though, he's sweeping everything up in one of his wide, vicious, lovely grins. "Mihael," he says, as Wedy watches them pointedly from the car, "do you want me to tell you something very secret?"

_Yes,_ Mello thinks, at the same time as he wonders vaguely if that hadn't been the exact thing B has said to Ellie Cale as she'd stood on the window ledge. And then, sharply, everything about Beyond's posture seems to shift and shake, expression going wide and utterly unaffected, something like sincere shock flashing through his eyes, diluting the whole of the previous conversation like a river dropped in a sea. Or, rather, the sea overtaking.

B is looking over Mello's shoulder, as if he's found the sea in the sky.

"Look," he murmurs, low and whole and wondrous, a jagged white finger pointing at the cloudless night.

Mello turns, following B's instructions like second nature, like there is no doubt of his being onto something. Of his having the answers that he always seems to conjure up from somewhere.

There's nothing there. Mello blinks, glancing around a bit, trying to spot something out of the ordinary, but there's nothing but the moon. Not even the blinking red and white of an airplane, not even a speckle of dim stars. He looks back to B, frowning, almost suspecting that this is some new form of mind game. "What?"

The wonder on B's face sells it differently, though. Has sold off all the games and left him with nothing but his sky and his wide eyes. He looks back at Mello, then quickly back up again, eyes following an invisible path doggedly, as if afraid to lose sight of it.

"You don't see it?"

Mello looks back to where he's looking, glances to Wedy in the car, who's frowning at them with dull reserve, and feels strange and itchy in his skin. "See what?"

It's barely a moment, strung with the hum of the quiet evening, before B turns quickly back to the car, pulling the backdoor open and leaning against the doorframe. He flutters his eyes at Wedy, though keeping firm track of his little invisible goldmine in the sky, and with peeling excitement in his voice, says, "Tell me again about Shinigami?"

 

\---

 

He makes calls, hacks files, digs through a trove of varyingly useless information, and all the while stiff with her presence at his back, hanging like a dank shadow as evening fades into night outside the windows.

"I would like to think you know what you're doing," Rem says with solemn distaste, "but this seems counterintuitive."

Light frowns, punching in a string of code. He could ask the police for the files directly, as L's calling card gets him more or less anything he wants anytime he asks for it, but he doesn't want to leave a paper trail between himself and the finer points of this case. He's not sure whether he should tell the investigators that they're dealing with something otherworldly yet, or if they'd be any use at all if he did. As it is, he's got three allies in this -nevermind that two of them are of the species he's hunting, and the other is his proverbial nemesis - and he's using what he has to do what he can.

"You're learning big words," he says, not looking at Rem.

He can feel her disgust like something physical, prodding at his sides. "I speak to L often," she says.

"Yes," Light says, nodding along at an uneven rhythm with the tip-taps of his fingers across the keys, "that's the problem. Do you think I want you hatching more plans with him? No, Ryuk will do just fine. L won't be able to see him, or speak to him, won't be able to manipulate him the way he's been doing to you."

"As I said," Rem murmurs, low and deep and spreading outward like a stone's drop in water, "I never managed to deliver his message. Thierry Morello only saw me for a moment before the King withdrew me into the Shinigami realm. And that aside, it wasn't anything very incriminating - only that L was alive, that he shouldn't trust you, but should also not pursue you in the Kira case. And to await further messages. It was really far from the worst he could have said, and if I had thought it would endanger Misa in any way, I never would have agreed to - "

Light is frozen. His hands have paused over the keyboard, despite being only halfway through the sequence. "What did you say?"

Rem's voice growls annoyed. "That I would never - "

"No, no, before that. The name. Thierry Morello." He turns slowly in his chair, eyebrows rising as Rem appears to realize her mistake, pupil popping a size larger. Light grins outright. "That's his name, isn't it?"

She has, at least, seemed to have picked up some of L's divisiveness, because her expression immediately locks down. "It doesn't matter, anyway, does it? Killing him now, when he is involved in the investigation again, will only draw attention to yourself. That aside, you have bigger problems at the moment."

She nods at the stack of newspapers on his desk, all gathered for their varying reports on this morning's disappearances, the resulting lockdown, and one Miss Kiyomi Takada. She's not wrong.

But that doesn't keep Light's insides from twisting into a warm knot of something like power, feeling the combined happenstance of the world come together solely in order to benefit him, and it tastes like justice sliding hot and heavy through his veins. He is a god, and it's not the pen or the pages or the dusty little realm barely touching theirs that's made him so. _He_ is a god.

Kira was molded from the flesh of Light Yagami, high school honor student, and he is the one carrying it all around now. The notebook is just a conduit. He is the true source of his own power.

He turns back to his computer, hands going back to the keys, punching in the dull code and watching it blink in hazy ones and zeroes, but barely noticing at all. "You're right," he says, but it's not particularly directed at Rem, more of a general statement to the world at large. "After all, L - and Aiber along with him - isn't anything to worry about right now."

_"It's a very curious thing, but, Light, I think it happens that I love you."_

The words skate over his skin like a branding iron, but he decides not to let it hurt the way it maybe should. He decides on superiority, on smugness and self-assurance. He could fall down and wallow in it, have a thing that's his and only that, but he is not so weak. Not so weak as L is. The world needs him. The world is counting on him.

He won't let it down.

 

\---

 

When there's something - _apparently_ \- flying through the night sky, crossing over buildings and ducking through copses of withering cherry blossoms and bobbing about with what to Mello seems like maniacal intent, it's quite an understatement to say that it's difficult to follow it by car.

B, though, is evidently a real MacGyver when it comes to road rage, inventing new traffic violations and flying across roads that definitely aren't actually roads, turning the dull silver Honda into a wild, all-terrain vehicle.

"So, when you see a giant monster in the sky, your first instinct is to follow it?" Mello snaps as they jump a curb and pull a U around the intersection, earning themselves several honks from very confused and offended Tokyo citizens.

"What do you want me to do?" B shoots back, pulling hard on the wheel. "Write a poem comparing it to a lake? Paint a stirring watercolor portrait for you and the lady? Time is a thing with teeth, Mihael, and it's chomping at the bit for us."

Mello grimaces, tightening his hold on the hand-rests and hoping like hell that the airbags are fully functional. "Funny," he grits, "the only thing with _teeth_ I see is you."

B laughs as they speed through the night. "Oh, but you should get a look at this thing. Makes me look like I go every week to Sunday school. If you think I'm a monster, you're in for a real treat whenever it decides to show itself to you!"

"Yeah, well, why is that again?" Mello asks, directing the question back over his shoulder at where Wedy's reclined, thoroughly disguising any hint of interest at the situation. "How come he can see it and not us?"

She shrugs. "You're asking the wrong girl. I just did the job, I didn't fuss around with the finer points of mysticism. Something about it touching you with its notebook."

"What the hell does that mean?" Mello asks, brow scrunching, at the same time as B laughs loudly and says, "Is that a euphemism?"

Wedy doesn't dignify either of the them with a direct answer, just says, "There's a whole incomprehensible mythos and a little black notebook that goes along with this mess, and I'm sure L will gladly explain it all if and when you find him. Until then, keep your heads down, hope that I know enough to keep us all from dying, and if you see a little blonde chick in pig-tails? Run the other way."

"Pig-tails?" Mello says doubtfully, voice rocking with every jolt down the road.

"Well, personally," B calls toward the backseat, "I trust you with my life and limb." It's sarcasm, but soaked in a thick layer of genuine excitement that rather obstructs the whole effect.

"Bite me," Wedy tosses back, voice even, long breaths filling the car with the sick stench of smoke.

"Oh baby," B laughs, voice shifting silky, dirty talking as he jerks it into a sharp round-about, "don't tempt me at a time like this."

Mello crosses his arms, turning to face the fogged up window. "Would you two cut it out," he mumbles.

"Aw, Mihael, my love," B coos, reaching quite worryingly across the divide between them with one hand to ruffle Mello's hair, scratching him behind the ears like a dear pet or something, "don't be jealous. When this is all over and we've found our pot of gold, I'll bite you, too."

Mello wrinkles his nose, wants to say something distanced and scathing - _I'll pass, thanks_ \- but when he turns back to look at B, what comes out is, "You're happy."

B glances at him sideways, momentarily thrown-off, but his expression snaps back into its over the top grin in not a moment and he slams down on the pedal. "You might say," he agrees. "It's a big day for me." He chews on his lips, glances in his rearview, flips someone off, and says, "Do you remember your parents, Mihael? Old ma and pa?"

Something twitches in Mello's throat, but he ignores it. "Yeah," he says.

"Do you miss them? Love them? Dream of seeing them again?"

He's a fifteen year old boy and _love_ is an embarrassing word, but, "Of course."

"Well, it's like that for me, today," B says, a coolness settling over him for a moment, drowning out the spitfire nighttime passion and replacing it with long-shadows that paint his face something like pretty. Like one of those Medieval wood carvings of this monster or that demon, artistry blending with the nightmare to make something beautiful. "I mean," he continues, suddenly flippant, "my parents were a couple of shitheads and I hope they're sitting pretty down in the bowels of hell right about now, but you know - it's the theoretical sentiment that counts, isn't it?"

"No," Wedy says.

The car screeches left, they all sway right, and then continue on into the night, chasing their ghost at breakneck speed.

 

\---

 

L flips through the file doggedly, just as if it were any other scrap of information from any other case. Nevermind that it had appeared on the floor next to him out of nowhere, without a single sound or visible movement, as if it had simply seeped into existence while he wasn't looking. But that's fine. Things like that happen sometimes nowadays.

Maybe the Shinigami Ryuk is haunting the place and maybe he isn't, but that becomes a moot point as soon as L delves into the crime scene photographs, the building around him fading out into a dim backdrop as the death - cold, steel cut and chemically conditioned - becomes the current reality. He reads the coroners reports once, twice, then again until it all sinks in and he can repeat it back chronologically to himself in a low, whispered voice.

From the beginning, this case had drifted somewhere in his peripheral, not making quite the impression it probably ought to have. All along he's assumed it was because Kira - his case, his crimes, his body and his cruel temper and his humorless smile - has been locked continuously at the forefront of his mind. But now, as he focuses entirely on the Tokyo Child Killer, as the papers are calling it, he's realizing that there is rather more something about the case itself that puts him off.

It's _boring_.

That sounds quite awful of him and when he runs it back in his mind he decides that's not quite the right word. What he means is, perhaps, more akin to _bland_. Cases like this ought to be interesting by definition, and at first glance undoubtedly draw the eye, but it's never the victims or the murder weapon or the evidence that really gives any particular crime its character; it's the killer.

Murder especially is drenched in an animalism, a fear, a hate, an idea, something that wriggles out and drags up a body count, and keeps dragging until it's caught and locked up. Without the perpetrator, death is just a natural occurrence, circle of life and Kumbaya and all of that darling pseudoscientific spiritualism that just means, _we don't know know, we really don't know, so we'll color it bland and family-friendly and then bury it somewhere and not let it cross our minds_. Death is just a cold, pale, still thing. Murder is running, and red, and clawed apart with deep fingerprints. The murderer is the runner.

But the Tokyo Child Killings have never felt like murder. The crime scene photos are awful, of course, the sort of nightmare fuel that lines paperback horror novels in the one hundred yen shops all across the city.

Yes, that's it. These deaths don't feel like murder, they feel like a story about murder. Man's inhumanity to man sketched out in dull colors for the crowd. Like whoever's killing isn't doing it because their mind tears and hounds and begs them to. It's like the killer is following a script. _Rape, kill, maim. Rinse, repeat._

It's dull as a heart attack. And hello irony, nice to see you around again.

He sets the file aside, leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes, trying to line it all up in his head - because when Light had sent along his deathly messenger, he'd neglected the inclusion of writing utensils of any sort, and his head is what he's got.

Shinigami kill with notebooks. Any death, but according to what Light says, only if the death is conceivably possible, and evidently not through any third party. One human cannot be made to kill another through a Shinigami's notebook. So, what that means is that there is a Shinigami brutalizing these children without the use of its Note as an intermediary. Physically killing them. Raping. Is that possible? That doesn't seem possible.

Then again, there are instances in almost all religious traditions of the great gods in the sky - or else the biblical angels - coming down from their heaven or their Olympus or their Asgard and making merry with the children of men. Hell, half of the Greco-Roman mythology is about Zeus's licentious outings to the earth below. Shinigami, while not actually appearing explicitly anywhere - not even in Japanese mythology, as they're a fairly recent addition to popular fairytales and children's stories - bear enough resemblance to similar mystical figures to qualify.

They also have the peculiar distinction of being quite obviously real.

Light had seemed utterly angered and confounded by the possibility that these gods of his are trespassing on his world, but as their Notes are designed to feed off of the lifespans of humans, it seems obvious that this world is just as much theirs, and that the species of Shinigami is a natural predator to the species of humanity. That's always the way of it, isn't it? Conquer the world, map every inch, study every phenomenon, tell yourself that you know all there is to know - and then wait for the rug to be pulled inevitably out from under your feet. The curtain is tugged back and you realize that you are the ant on your hill and some great grubby child - or, in this case, god - is poking at you to watch you squirm.

Undoubtedly, there is another curtain behind that, and another behind it, and on and on and on, up and up the ladder and it's not certain if we will ever reach the top. Or if there is a top to reach. We have only our microscopes and our gloved hands and our minds, blunt instruments that we stumble through the dark with, looking for truth or waiting for death or an indistinguishable mix of both.

Among the myriad of reasons why Light Yagami cannot and could never rule the world is because he doesn't _understand it_ , and beyond that, doesn't understand that there is no way that he ever could. A wise man knows how much he does not know, and Light is brilliant, a genius, but he is not wise, and L doubts if he will live long enough to ever become so.

L's eyes are closed and they stay closed, the cool rush of evening settling over him, and things are quiet and things are still and perhaps he should be snapping back awake and to work, setting his mind on the job like an engine and letting it run down to its last drop of oil, but he doesn't want to. He wants to sit in the dark and breathe and let the thoughts come, and go, and wither and grow. He is not a machine today. He is just a man.

And so everything is calm for a while.

Until it's not.

 

\---

 

"Stay in the car," B says as he climbs out of the driver's side, boots scuffing on the rough gravel

Mello rolls his eyes and makes a move to follow from his own door, only to feel the lock snap shut under his fingers. "Don't be an idiot, B. You don't even know what's in there," he says, struggling to snap the handle to _open_ again.

They'd taken a turn from the Tokyo main streets into the virtual middle of fucking nowhere, squeezed between two hulking, darkened buildings that look as if they haven't seen a visitor since the mid-sixties, and a janitor a few decades before that. If L is here, he's really downgraded in accommodations.

"And gee willikers, I sure am scared," he shoots back, miming an expression of exaggerated terror. "But how's about this? I'll go check it out and you two crazy kids hold down the fort. Deal?"

"No," Mello snaps. From the back, Wedy blows smoke into his face.

"Okay," B says, a quaint agitation working into his usually jovial - if unendingly vile - tone, "that was just some creative embellishment. This isn't actually a democracy and I could actually tear the both of you limb from limb and set your entrails on fire." He blinks at them for a moment, the air gone thin and tense, then breaks it with a quick raise of his eyebrows. "But I'm, you know, not going to. Just, trust me on this, my little buttercups - "

" _Stop_ with the pet names for a minute, would you?" Mello snaps. "I'm serious."

"As a heart attack, I know," B agrees. "So am I. I have to do this alone. It'll all be fine, alright? I'll go in, take a look around, and if I spot anything L-shaped, I'll grab it and make my grand escape. If I take too long, that's when you come in guns-a-blazing. For now, watch her, watch the outside, and make sure nobody gets in or out. You're guarding the perimeter, okay? It's a very important job."

His condescension is sharing equal ground with a strange sort of twitchiness - not the kind that's native, that he lays on in thick stripes and writhes with in slow, jerky, theatrical movements, but an understated, self-denying sort of edginess, like a teenager on a first date.

Mello can't decide how to feel about what he's being told, or whether it would be more admirable of him to insist or abstain, so he just closes his mouth and decides to take the path of least resistance for now.

"And what do I do?" Wedy asks, voice harsh from too much smoke, too little sleep, and the sobering pangs of what is probably pain from her wounds. "Take the gun and get the job done when he inevitably panics and misfires?"

"Hey," Mello snaps, halfheartedly.

Wedy flutters her eyelashes, displaying little empathy. "No offense."

"You sit pretty," B tells her, hand tapping unevenly on the car's slick exterior, sending thin little clangs through the metal. "And if you see Yagami?" he says, with an absent, foreboding, all-kinds-of-nightmare smile. "Kill him."

He slams the door then and Mello watches him go, jagged shoulder sticking out like a beacon in the white shirt that he'd changed into, and wants to say something clever before Wedy does. As it is, though, they both remain frowningly silent as B's outline, stops, turns around, and walks back the few yards to tug the door open again.

"Alright, but," he asks, with all the decorum of a ten year old in his first communion suit, shoving a loose strand of hair behind one ear and making himself as presentable as possible, "how do I look?"

 

\---

 

_I drank your heart out of the faucet. I glued your eyelids to mine and watched the world twitch against your fine white bones. I could never love you and I could never leave you but I did both and I never apologized for either._

_"Sundays," you said, "are - "_

 

\---

 

There is a mattress outside of the building. It's large and white and wrapped up in a plastic cover. There is an order form stapled to the side of it. Beyond stands there for a whole minute, looking at it, mind conjuring a number of wild scenarios into which it could fit.

The wrong address. A lost and confused truck driver. Sentient bedding, with the aim of taking over the city. This is an abandoned mattress factory and here is an abandoned mattress. A place to sleep, conjured from the high heavens. Conjured in plastic.

Guess heaven pays for shipping, just like everyone else.

He presses his fingers into it, testing that it's there and that it's real. It's soft, feels comfortable, a place where he wouldn't mind stopping for a rest if he wasn't hopped up on the roaring music in his veins, being led on a fraying rope down the long alleys to the end of the world. He feels it in his hands, buzzing like loose energy, and it shivers in him as he leans down in front of the heavy metal doors to pick the locks there.

He feels a stare on him, but the bride and the child are tucked around the corner, and groom's eyes are closed because the grooms eyes are always closed. Can't bear to look.

So that only leaves the monster.

 

\---

 

_The worst? The best? I don't remember now. We were children leaving scratch marks in the apple grove and I followed you up and tore you down and followed you up again._

_You said something about Sundays and I shoved you off of the branch you were locked around, keeping my grip tight and falling with you. The dirt was cool and we hit the ground harder and faster than I expected to. I dreamt of your knees that night, digging into my side as you shoved me away, grappling for the apple tree again._

_I didn't know why you were so committed to climbing it then, but it didn't take me long to figure out. I sat and I watched and I waited. I learned you like the books whose covers I liked to carve off. I made a map out of your ribcage and the rough skin in the crook of your elbow that came in patches every autumn._

 

\---

 

The punk rock god of hell doesn't respond when he whispers, "Hello there," around the creaking door and into the unlit hall of the office building. B's been around long enough to know when to trust his eyes, and he knows he'd followed a spiny demon in leather shoes across town to get here, and he doesn't know exactly what the night wants to show him, but he can wager a few guesses.

He'd known since he was six years old what the reason for his existence was.

He steps into the hallway, letting the door shut soundlessly behind him.

_Honey, I'm home._

 

\---

 

_I fucked you in the apple grove when I was 14. You were older. You were always older, witness the world. I wanted to flush everything that wasn't me out of you, just for the moment, just so that I could watch the rest seep back in. The divine disease that you were born with._

_I was a death you were born to die. I was a boy you were made to kiss on rainy evenings while you hated me, and told me so, and drove the caretaker's truck off of the grounds and into town to manipulate someone into buying you a bottle of gin that you would never drink._

_You gave it to me and I poured half of it on the azalea bushes, so you snatched it back and you gulped it down and threw up in the passenger's seat when we took the car back out._

_"You are the only person I've ever hated," you told me, the next morning, fingers on your temples after Roger had gotten through with the lecture and Wammy had transported his unimpressed silence to a different wing._

_I looked at you and my heart ate itself out of my chest . I smiled and you didn't smile back. I said, "You are the only person I've ever met."_

 

\---

 

The air tastes cavernous and it smells like metal and skin, but the place is no labyrinth. Easy halls, easy doorways, mapped out just like you'd think it'd be, if you're the type of person to think of it.

He finds him propped up like a decoration, older without looking it, and half asleep. Give B oil paints and he could make a masterpiece even without a light source. Give him a pen and he could write sonnets. Give him a cross, and he could make a martyr out of everyone in the room.

He is given none of that. He only has his hands and feet, hair and voice. Fingerprints. Earlobes. The scabs on his knees.

He has L sitting cross-legged against the wall, and a sudden soaring sense of terror. What if he never opens his eyes? What if the end is now. The devil is laughing somewhere in these halls, chewing on the spoils of war. _Man makes plans, God laughs._

Who's laughing now?

He listens. He doesn't hear anything.

He says, loudly, brashly, and in a vaudeville voice that dances on stage, "Well, this sure is embarrassing. It seems we've both shown up wearing the same outfit."

And a moment later, with a silent twist and a hot-blood shout of the pulse, L's eyes open.

 

\---

**tbc.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so as i'm sure you can all tell nothing important is going to happen next chapter. *rows away in a boat of lies*
> 
> thank you all so much for reading. all reviews are appreciated, and i'll try to get the next chapter out as soon as i can!


	23. the devil you did

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for vague sexual content, minorly explicit violence and blood, action written by someone who doesn't know how to write action? possibly disappointing anticlimactic-ness.
> 
> well hello! it didn't take half as long to update this time i don't think, but things went a little slower than i expected them to and i'm sorry for that. these were some of my favorite scenes to write in the whole fic and something i've been looking forward to for months now. that said, i'm far too close to it to have a clue if it's any good so if it's not my apologies are sincere. all i really want to do is write a good story that i enjoy writing and that you guys enjoy reading, and i just really hope this doesn't disappoint.
> 
> oh oh, and who's excited for the special dn anniversary update? show of hands?
> 
> thank you all so much for reading.

_"You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit."_

\- Oscar Wilde, _The Picture of Dorian Gray_

 

\---

 

The boy is sober and thin when they bring him in, underfed and ravenous, hair hanging in mangy knots across his face, and a blue-tinted pallor to his skin that suggests he ought to have succumbed to hypothermia many months earlier.

Probably the least notable thing about him is that he doesn't speak. A hadn't spoken more than a word for days when they'd first brought him here, and L had spent an entire week completely undetectable, exploring the cavernous passages and attics and cellars, popping up only as a set of unwashed, barely developed hands at the tail-ends of meal times to grab something off the dessert tray and then scramble away again.

Roger had called it cause for worry, but Quillish had seen it for what it truly was: investigation.

After two years with L, though his peculiarities are numerous, he thinks that he has finally come to understand the integral distinction between him and other children of his age - and most other people in general - and it is not only his photographic memory and incredible capacity to retain and even understand complex information, but his, if this is the word for it, childishness.

His power lies not in growing up faster, but rather more slowly.

_"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up."_

Quillish doesn't think much of Picasso's work as a general rule - he's more Monet, even a Turner, sort of fellow - but he finds immeasurable truth in those particular words, and would venture to add that every child is also, in fact, a detective.

L Lawliet, though, through whatever happenstance that had led to his very queer living situation in the back room of St. Michael's church, with food and shelter provided, but no particular guardian assigned, had managed to retain the integrally violent curiosity of a babe at its mother's breast, seeing the world for the first time and wondering at every sight - and through the bravery lent by his intelligence, venturing to discover it. Whereas most children are, by his age, educated out of the instinctual and into the societal necessities of _sit up straight, comb your hair, don't put that in your mouth, don't say that because it will offend_.

The priests of St. Michael's, while evidently making a valiant attempt to educate their young pupil in the ways of the lord - whatever ways those are, nowadays - had been too old and too thrown-off by L's strange intellect to insist upon any stricture in the matter, and more or less had simply left him to raise himself up.

And he had.

Beyond Birthday, however, looks as if he hadn't been raised at all, but rather left for the first six years of his life to grow like some creeping vine in the wilds of the Japanese countryside, which is where Quillish had found him a week and a half ago. He is nowhere near as perfectly tempered for deductive work as L is, but there is a writhing natural genius in him, tangled up with the quickness of necessity.

He is the animalism to balance out A's neat human practicality, and - ideally - dropping L in the middle of them will hone him more sharply into the weapon that the world needs, to do that job that no one else can do. They'll also make convenient back-ups, should the original somehow fail.

And, as a quaint and charming bonus, all being boys of more or less a similar age, they may get on very well.

 

\---

 

They do not get on very well.

Quillish doesn't know the sequence of events that leads to each circumstance, but on the second day after Beyond Birthday's arrival, A is found crying in the west study about 'ghosts in the walls,' and B and L are absolutely nowhere to be found until late evening, when - after a thorough search is conducted of the grounds - they're discovered in the storage room of the green house in curious states of dress.

B's clothes, bought new to replace the rags he'd been found in, rest in a rejected heap off to the side of the cramped little room. He's dressed now in L's white cotton shirt and blue jeans, which hang loosely off of him - as for all of L's smallness, B is still two years younger and on top of that severely undernourished - and L sits cross-legged across from him, bare from head to toe without any evident concern over it.

They face each other studiously, as if each equally as puzzled over what the other is. There is no indication either way as to whether Beyond has taken L's clothes by force or if they had been given freely, and no explanation as to why such an uneven bargain had gone on.

Quillish expects that physical exploration of one's fellows is natural at such an age, but he knows that suggesting such a thing would turn Roger a rather mortified shade of purple, so he refrains.

Instead, he simply asks, "L, are you alright?"

He blinks, and stands quickly, giving the assembled search party a rather blunt view of his entire body. He doesn't appear to notice or care, and does not even look at Beyond Birthday when he says firmly, like an orator giving a speech, "He's no good. Take him back to where you found him."

This declaration, however hurtful it may have been to a child like A, sends B into an uproarious fit of laughter. One that, if Quillish had to guess, benchmarks the moment when the majority of the staff of Wammy's decided quite firmly that Beyond was the scientifically minded equivalent to _spawn of the devil_.

Roger frowns at the display. He'd said not to bring B here, said A was getting on bad enough as it was and another one couldn't be expected to fare much better, and he evidently finds his prediction well proven by the current incident.

Quillish, however, takes it as any investigator worth his salt would: as a clue. A piece of a larger puzzle, a dot on a map only just unfolding. L, as is usual, may in fact be right that B is no good, but good is not what they need.

"Come," he says, taking off his coat and putting it gently over L's shoulders - not so much for decency as for worry over the chill - "I'll have some cocoa made. You too, B." He glances over his shoulder at the younger boy, watches his expression even out as his laughter dies down.

They walk like that, all in a congregation of good old fashioned British hand wringing and whispers, Quillish prodding L along in the front, B following step-for-step behind them, like a curious, grinning shadow that one cannot escape.

Like a ghost in the walls.

 

\---

 

**fourteen years later.**

 

\---

 

The ghost is in the halls.

He opens his eyes and it's too dark to see anything but his reflection and that doesn't even make sense, because there are no mirrors, or stoves, or chairs, or anything like that in this place. He is alone here. He is alone.

But the voice claws up from the bottom of him, the words ringing backwards like some sort of feedback, and he sees hell in a white t-shirt, grinning like hell does, and looking down at him from a casual hunch and he cannot breathe, he is not here, nothing is here - he is alone, he is alone, he is alone, he took out all of the parts that tried to crawl in, he filled in the cracks, he is a martyr and a pretender and his own laugh track, he is in love with a boy named Light and a world that doesn't exist and he is _nothing_. He has taken the something and blown it into the wind and that's okay because nothing is okay, and so it fades. He is not the center of the word anymore.

He is not anyone.

There is not anyone here.

He kicks the ghost in the shins anyway.

The movement comes out of him like a storm, unpracticed bones snapping with force, and the connection is solid and real and L is yanking himself up into a half-crouched fighter pose on instinct, colliding with a madness and a strength that he saves like a secret, shameful trinket for special occasions when he cannot keep it down. _No no no no no no no_.

"No no no no no no no," he is saying out loud, but the words are slurred and mussed and he sounds far too young, and terrified, a little child fighting specters in the dark. The punches connect, the kicks meet flesh, and cloth - familiar cotton, soft from wear - he knows he knows he knows, the way you know in a dream, the way the truth sneaks up and whispers itself in your ear long before the logical proof appears. He knows.

"No no no no."

"Yes yes yes _yes_."

His blows are weathered, the hands grapple but without violence, and there is a joyful acceptance, a reception of communion. Where is Light? Light belongs here for this. Light is on his side, if not in any material way then in the way that he would stand here and say _no no no_ with him, that he would fight and claw and tear. He would kill the ghost.

"Slow down, prince, you've got time. I've got miles of time and it's yours. Slow down, L." The voice is older, and deeper, and sickly pale with a distance. It sounds like Christmastime, tinkling bells and fairy lights, and the rushing wind in the apple grove and the cold on his back that always got warmed away.

" _No_."

Even with the chain keeping him in a certain range, L's violence is unyielding and wilder than it has been in years, fists swinging and legs kicking - unmeasured, fueled by animal instinct and a loathing that has nowhere to go but here. And the ghost doesn't back down, but takes it all, shoving him back, crowding him, limbs wrapping him up and begging for the bruising weight of the crushing, writhing _pain_ that lives here in this moment, rising like a wave from somewhere too dark and deep to see the bottom of.

"L."

"No."

"L."

"No, no, not ever, this does not happen ever, this does _not happen_."

The ghost laughs. "Of course it does, you shithead." Terms of endearment. "Just slow down and _look at me_."

L cannot breathe, like swallowing water wrong, it chokes him, this moment, the feeling of being crushed against the wall as his blows slow down, body weakening, head light from the sudden burst of activity - but he can't, he can't, _this can't happen_.

But it does. _He_ is here and grasping him like a vice, breathing all his air and pushing so close that they might as well melt into some foul, amorphous monster and be done with it. _Where is Light?_ is a thought he should be thinking, but he cannot even remember how.

"Get out of me," he breathes, even if he means _off_ , even if it comes out messy and hushed and exhausted, as Beyond Birthday pulls him into a strange and uncomfortable hug that makes all of his flesh sting like one big open wound.

"Can't," B says into his shoulder. "Can't possibly."

 

\---

 

"Yes, this is Watari," Aiber grits into the phone, hands scrambling across the desk for the clearance codes that he reads off to the chief of police in as stately a tone as he can manage, disguising his voice even behind the modulator. "Now, may I speak to your supervisor? It's urgent. No, L _does not_ have time to do this sort of thing himself. Do you really think you're that important?"

He is completely sober for the first time in a long time that he can remember, and as he's handed off to relate his information to someone of authority, his mind - pulsing and awake - repeats back the address that he's imprinted indefinitely into it over the last few hours. It forms aching shapes in his throat. Everything hurts a little bit, but it's drowned out a little more by the rushing adrenaline of discovery.

This might be it. It might not, but - it _might_.

"Yes, hello, this is he," he grits into the phone, agitation mounting with his excitement. "That's right, I need a dispatch team to a location in Ikebukuro, as soon as possible. There's been a lead on the possible location of a critical bit of evidence needed to apprehend Kira, and we don't have enough men at our disposal to make a proper showing there on our own. No, I won't hold. Do you think L cares about your wariness? He doesn't. He's far too important to. Just give them all helmets and tell them to play it safe. They're trained, aren't they? Or are you officers so incompetent as to not be able to scout out a location?"

After a few minutes more of his very convincing arguments - riddled with a few pride-shattering insults just to sway things - he's reciting the address with a smugness that he's fairly sure is nowhere near suited to the role he's trying to play.

It's only moments after he's hung up the phone, cracking his knuckles victoriously at a job well done, when the man himself marches in the door and says, without any apparent condemnation, "I don't suppose I want to know why you were just impersonating me on line three?"

Aiber shrugs slightly, too satisfied to panic, but not altogether keen on this development. "If you don't give me anything to work with, you've gotta know I'll go out and find work myself. I'm the everyman, and I'm doing your job for you, so you're welcome." He gives a finger-gun and click of his tongue, but it all feels a bit ridiculous without a drink in his hand.

"Whatever job you're doing, it's not mine," Watari says, cocking his head cooly. "But I won't stop you. I don't ever stop L and he ruins things on a daily basis. I only hope you're prepared to deal with the consequences of your actions."

Aiber breathes out, calming now with the knowledge that Watari has no intention of canceling the dispatch order, and a golden, glowing image of the future flickers through his mind of dragging L from a proverbial burning building, taking him by his proverbial hand and riding off with him into the proverbial sunset where Kira is nothing but a dreary bar story.

These things are not real. They will not happen. Nothing will work out half as well as he wants it to, because nothing ever does.

But L will be back, and that's enough. Aiber's not completely lost to his romanticism. It's enough.

 

\---

 

"How?" L asks, and B's shoulders twitch and he's distracted for just long enough that L has time to twist the chain around his neck, jerking them back around on one another and crushing B against the wall. There's a rattle and the dim of night and he feels like he wants a cup of coffee and a bed to lie in and not sleep, just stare at the ceiling and hate the things he wants to hate and love the things he wants to love.

He chokes B, listens to the gasping, guttural noises and he doesn't second-guess it for a second. It's like killing a bug, some foreign entity that's crawled into your home and doesn't belong. It's not murder if _he_ started it. And even if it is, L is okay with having this blood on his hands. He doesn't know how or when or why or _what_ but that isn't half as important as _undoing it_.

Get out, get out, get out.

B head-butts him, knocking his grip away and using the leverage of the chain to swing L around with one hand, slamming him into the wall like a sack of bricks that crumbles heavily to the floor.

"I didn't wanna have to do it like this," B breathes laughingly, reaching down to grab at L, who spins quickly, kicking upwards and jamming his heel into the center of B's chest, knocking him back several steps and making the chain wring taut around his throat.

L takes his distracted moment to pull himself back up, but by the time he's going in for a the blow, B's extricated himself from his noose and has plenty of time to duck his punch with a tinkling giggle.

"Oh, who am I kidding," he barks, in his same old, combat-boot, up all night, Sex Pistols voice - still the pretentious 15-year-old who'd shadowed L like he was being paid for it, only bigger and taller and with evidently far more muscle mass, "I love to do this."

He grabs L's swinging fist by the wrist and drags him forward, jerking him around, and L has to lighten his steps and follow avidly in order to keep from toppling over. That's all for naught, though, when B stops suddenly, letting him fall forward with the inertia, and slams his knee straight up into L's stomach, jarring him into a shaken collapse.

"I wonder who'll bleed first," B breathes, like the monster in the dark that he is, leaning over L's body. The view is familiar. The monster comes out from under the bed. The monster says hello with his hands, and goodbye with the rising sun.

L, knowing that the strength of his fist alone will not be nearly enough, tilts his wrist as he throws a punch, the quicksilver sharpness of the metal making a thin gash on B's cheek where the edge of the cuff skims his flesh. B laughs again.

"It always is me, isn't it?"

L doesn't respond, doesn't know what to say, hasn't played this game in years and cannot possibly start now.

He pulls himself up into a guarded crouch, body thrumming with adrenaline and the preformation of bruises, but it doesn't feel the way it does with Light - there is no warming, even glow of communion. There is no mutuality to the pain, or the pleasure. Whatever it is B feels, it's too foreign and unwelcome and _vile_ to be allowed. He cannot allow it, or else - 

"I would always bleed and you were always bloodless," B says, wiping at his cheek. He grins. "Are we home yet, Lawliet? Are we home?"

"Not even close," L grits, voice clawing itself out of him even as he longs not to engage. None of this makes any sense, but old patterns are so easy to fall back into, and before B can respond, L jams his knee up, hitting him directly in the scrotum.

B's eyebrows go up and he chokes a little, legs giving out as he falls to his knees. "Getting warmer," he says with a pained chuckle.

L takes the moment to look up and down the hall for any sign of salvation - Rem, Misa, anyone will do at this point - but there's no one and nothing there, and he'd given the makeshift lock-pick to Light because he's an undeniable _fucking idiot_ , and now he's trapped himself in a cage with Mr. Nightmare himself, the reigning champion of childhood trauma and the one person L has ever had more destructive feelings towards than he has himself.

In his defense, this is the plot-twist of all plot-twists and the last thing he saw coming anywhere near him, now or ever. Beyond Birthday, even still living, is a figment of L's past, a scary story that keeps him up at night. If he is living and breathing and laughing uproariously still, it's in a world completely separate and unconnected from L's current reality.

And yet -

"You look good," B's saying, "kind of worse for wear, but then it makes sense given who's been doing the wearing." B's eyebrows pop up and L stands there, rejecting the words, not allowing them anywhere close, because B cannot talk about Light because Light is on a completely separate plane from him and they are things that cannot mix. L cannot let all the pieces in him touch because they will rip and they will tear and they will be unceasing, and when they're done there will be nothing left.

B is erosion and L is eroded and Light is the balm for the wound.

No.

Light is erosion and L is eroded and B is -

No, no, that's not right either.

L is erosion.

Yes, that's it. There's the winner. L is erosion and he is eroded and everyone else is just cannon fodder. If there's a whirlwind it's his own, and if he dies it's because he built himself the noose. No one else is allowed to touch the cross he hangs himself on.

"Of course I know about Yagami," B continues, as if L needs him to explain. He cuts him off hurriedly because he really doesn't.

"Are you real?" L asks, with a punishing determination forcing itself out of him and into his voice.

B cocks his head. "Well, I guess, but if you wanna get metaphysical - "

L kicks him in the face.

His jaw makes a very satisfying cracking noise and L hopes maybe it's been dislocated, but B spits and shakes himself and answers the question properly in the next moment. "Yeah," he breathes, "I'm real as I've ever been."

"Are you here?" L continues, barely listening to his previous answer.

B grins up at him like he understands what he's asking, even though L doesn't even really. "I couldn't be anywhere else."

"How did you get here?" L asks, moving from one question to the next like an interrogator. He doesn't know how he's managing it. If B had wanted to he could have gotten up and skinned L alive by now. Stripped him and carved him open. Taken the heart he'd always wanted home as a prize.

B shrugs, still doesn't stand. He's on his knees and L remembers times like these - not even counting blowjobs - and it makes fissures in him if he thinks on them too long.

"Took a plane," he says. "Then drove a car. Really wasn't that hard, if I'm being honest. Not half the chase I expected, and none of the primetime mystery hijinks that I so love, but the ends justify everything else, and you are the end." He swallows, closing his eyes, and then starts speaking like it's suddenly turned into a recitation: " _I think you're the end of the world and I've always thought so. Every time I look at you I see a light show, and I think when I was born the devil put a letter to you in me._ "

"Your poetry hasn't gotten any better."

B grins, opening his eyes again, like he's coming back down from a demented high or something. "Well, prison's not really the place to practice. I did learn how to make a nifty shiv, though! I can show you whenever you decide you want to stop playing 'victim of a home invasion' and act like a real boy, stripped of your Pinocchio wood, for five seconds." B shakes out his hair like a wet dog. "Seriously L, are you having fun playing princess in the tower, while all your little soldiers outside sweat and wring their hands over you? I suppose this is what gets you off nowadays, huh?"

Among other things, L thinks, but doesn't say. Instead, he breathes in and out, lets his mind level, even as his pulse still thrums rapidly. "B, get back in your car and drive away." He doesn't care where he goes, what he does - christ, who he kills. He just wants him _away_.

B rolls his eyes, then sets them determinedly on L. "Not without what I came for, sugar."

L's limbs twitch. He wants to pace back and forth but he refuses to turn his back to Beyond, refuses to look away for fear of where he might show up next. Whatever crevice he intends to crawl in through, L is sure he doesn't want him there.

"Do you know why I didn't kill you after the case in LA?" he asks, quietly, voice gone detached and smooth suddenly, in a way that he hopes pisses B off endlessly.

He looks more amused than anything else. "Because that would eliminate the possibility of conjugal visits?" he suggests, with a juvenile tilt of his hips.

L doesn't blink. There is an 18-year-old version of him who is far too used to this and that seems to be the him that's auto-piloting now. 

He says, "Because you were not within immediate reach. Because it would have required the expenditure of resources and time and effort that you just didn't warrant. Because I already knew the end of that story and it would have been _dull_." He's not looking at B but he can see the white walls, white jacket, white nurses, and he remembers a panic and a fear that he puts on mute now. That he'd put on mute then. He thinks he's been on mute for years.

"Oh _shut up_ , L," B snaps, and it's not the response he's expecting, but maybe it should be. Maybe he's been spending too much time with Light, who can easily be deflected by any blow to his pride. B had never been so simple. B had never had much pride. "I know this dance. I watched you choreograph it and I learned all the steps and I tore off your ankle bones so you couldn't cha-cha anymore. Sing me a new one, darling, cause this tune's gone stale."

L tilts his head at him. "To the point, then? Alright. Right now you're not dull. Right now you have my attention. Consequently, I have no qualms about putting an end to you."

B's eyebrows rise and tad, but he seems not so very discouraged by the threat. "Oh yeah, baby," he growls with a tilt of porno mockery to his voice, " _eradicate_ me."

L round-house kicks him across the face. Blood flies from his lips, staining warm on L's skin, but B only laughs and touches his lips, like he's just tasted something nice. Like he's _hungry_.

"Annihilate me," he breathes, and L hits him again because he doesn't know what else to do. He hates this game but he doesn't know how not to play it. Is an alcoholic still an alcoholic if he's stranded on a desert island with nothing to drink in reach? Or is he cured? If you just stay away from it - if you just -

"Obliterate me," B spits, making a ragged move to stand up, even as L slams his fist into him, knocking him down again. His shoulder collides with the wall, his head makes a dull thud, and he breathes in and out too loudly. L hits him again before he even has time to speak.

"Annihila - "

"You said that," L grits, knocking him back. B pushes forward, body bearing upwards, and the velocity with which it hits knocks them both a couple steps away from the wall, and since B is taller and slightly broader, it tilts the dynamics of the fight sharply out of L's favor.

Only for a moment, though, as he uses the leverage of the cuffs keeping him hooked within a certain radius to keep his balance and quickly sidestep B, bringing the chain around his legs in a sort of lasso. B jumps it at the last moment, though, and tackles L so that they both go flying towards the hard ground. There's a thud and a skittering pain through his spine, but L doesn't let the head rush or the nausea keep him from jabbing B in the ribs.

Instead of bucking away, however, the way one is meant to do when injured in one of the most sensitive spots on the body, B leans into it, making a hollow animal noise that thrums through the hall, down L's fingertips, to the back of his mind where the sense-memory glows like a live thing. He remembers this disease, remembers it infecting him, remembers cutting off limbs, whole parts of himself just to get it _out_.

It makes love look like a pale thing. It makes Light's touch feel washed out and far away.

But no, no no no, that's not - it's not just a fiction. It's not just a story he told himself so that he could rest, it's a true, breathing thing, and if Light were here - if Light were here -

"Kill me," B breathes into his face, and he's laughing and he's begging and his hips are pressing into L's, grinding rhythmically, denim on denim and heady, making sparks flare where sparks shouldn't be and the whole world go a different shade of lightning. "Kill me," he demands, clawing at L's scalp, pulling him closer by the hair.

L's legs are parting and his throat is filthy with hot breath and he's hard and he aches from Light in him and there are too many dead children to count, too much going on, all spinning and violating, sensory overload and it feels like B was right and he is the end of the world, and he's ending it now - mounting and mounting, pressure so hot and close he could die, and all the bad, bruised memories laid out like a cheat-sheet to his pain, and it feels _funny_.

This is the monster under his bed, the skeleton in his closet, the ghost that haunts his ghost, but he's such a good fuck and such good fun and he always was, and L hates himself for it. For being here, under him. For meeting his hips thrust for thrust and luxuriating in the pleasure, wanting to choke on it. It's too much, too hard, the end coming like dynamite and it's all going to -

_Oh_.

He jerks slowly, body going shivery and very warm, the insides of his thighs growing sticky with come and that's really a bit pathetic, isn't it? A vague shame floats at the back of his mind, but the pleasure of indecency only makes his orgasm burn longer, body quaking under B's.

There is nothing pure here, nothing holy. Light had fucked him until he bled on this very same floor the night before, but L had breathed through the whole thing, had know himself and categorized every touch into something called _love_ , something he could write on the walls and not loathe.

He loathes this. B on top of him, and losing himself. Soiled, dropped down, the apple grove. His hand in L's and L's in his and the world spread out like a blanket of agony that could only be overridden through a secret kind of sacrifice. The old church and the vines and the fireplace with the coal dust in it, painting their hands black. _Queen_ humming lowly from a record player while he'd shower, clean the scent off of him - beginning every day again and again a new man after dying every night. It hurt too much not to celebrate.

L's thoughts are loose and interconnected and he cannot bear to open his eyes and see the look that B is giving him - hips now stilled, but quite obviously still hard and pulsing against L's clothed thigh. He thinks of Light's voice, his false laugh and his neat fingernails and the fluffy pale kindness of his strife.

Light is a separate animal from L, and that is why he can love him.

He pulls B up by the hair, throwing him off more easily than he should be able to, but B falls where he's set, like a rag doll, limbs extricating themselves from L's to leave him sticky and cold and writhing in self-disgust.

"I'm not dead yet," B singsongs from his slump against the wall, giving L sharp bedroom eyes that demand body and blood and all sorts of sacramental shenanigans of the like. "Keep your promise."

L reels back his fist, packing power into it. He intends to.

 

\---

 

Mello raps his knuckles on the windowpane, antsy like an amateur, and says, "He's taking too long."

Wedy rolls her eyes, flicking her lighter on to watch the flame burn, for lack of anything more diverting to do. "It's barely been ten minutes. It takes twice as long as that to get L to even say hi to you sometimes."

The tapping stops, and Mello looks back at her, neck craning over the passenger's seat. "You think he's really in there?" The windows are foggy with the cold and in the evening light he nearly looks like the role he's trying to play.

Wedy shrugs. "Must be. B would be back already by now if he hadn't found what he was looking for. My guess is they're taking some personal time to 'catch up,' or whatever the kids are calling it these days." She arches an eyebrow at him, and not just because he's the only juvenile in the vicinity.

"Don't say it like that," Mello grunts.

Wedy could laugh tinkly and bright like a chandelier, but she doesn't. She isn't going to bother to play for him. "Don't give me orders, hotshot."

"Hey, I'm the one with the gun here, you know," he shoots back, not quite a threat but more a plea for recognition. That's why boys his age always get guns, isn't it? To be known. There's a flatness and a solemnity in him that's fairly singular, but he's not so special as all that. Just a child in over his head and not looking to surface. She remembers what that kind of naiveté tastes like. Ruinous, but worth it, maybe.

Still, she is not kind enough to resist saying, "And I'm the one who could have taken that gun away from you, shoved it down your throat, and blown that pretty hair off your pretty head anytime I wanted, and haven't. So let's both show a little more consideration, shall we?"

His fear is sharp in the moment, but it melts like ice after she follows the threat up with a smile, and he shakes his head, breathing out, "You're too much like him."

It seems he really is worried about his pet maniac, isn't he? That would be very charming if she could be charmed.

"From exposure, I'm sure," she says.

"It's only been a few days."

"Oh," Wedy says, a lying tenor mutating her tone, "I thought you were talking about L."

She hadn't but she says it anyway just to watch Mello's expression twist. He's going to have to be stripped of his misguided hero-worship at some point, and Wedy wagers she'd be far kinder about it than the man himself.

For his part, Mello mostly ignores the comment, resuming his rhythmic twitching. After several moments of that, he sits up, face set in a resolve Wedy can see in the side-view mirror. "I'm going in," he says, pocketing the gun.

"There's really no need," Wedy says, but doesn't rouse herself unduly to prevent him. It's what she would have done at that age, so desperate to prove her worth.

"What if the Shinigami's got him?" he snaps, reeling around on her as he opens his door.

"I don't think that's how Shinigami work," she responds dully, but honestly, she wasn't around the one at headquarters long enough to really pick up anything besides, _big_ , _ugly_ , and _terrible conversationalists._ "And even so? What's it going to do? Rip out his spine. He'll just grow a new one, probably."

"We're a _team_ ," Mello insists, stepping out of the car.

The cool rush of Japanese autumn splits the air with a familiar, peaking tranquility. She remembers laughing at age 19, barefoot on the sidewalk and smoking a stolen cigarette. The handcuff around her wrist is chafing the skin there, keeping her locked to the front seat, a prisoner under a night sky that she owns. She'd stolen it, so it's hers. But they'd stolen her, so now she's their's.

"You're a team," she corrects. "I'm your hostage."

Mello doesn't look back at her, doesn't appear to be listening at all, just mumbles, "Stay here," before slamming the door and jogging across the alleyway to turn the corner to the building's entrance.

"Say hi to L for me," Wedy calls after him, though she's not sure he hears or if it matters. She feels a little written off, but this is a game she didn't sign up to play, and she'd rather sit this round out, if it's all the same.

 

\---

 

Yagami is, as politely as one can manage, haranguing information out of Ide and batting aside Aizawa's numerous and varied questions, when Aiber walks into the room. He doesn't look up and Aiber considers taking a few steps back and re-doing the whole thing, if only to make a proper show of it, but then a sidelined glare nabs him where he stands and he knows he's made the entrance he needed to,

"Well," Light says, as he crosses the room to where the printer is spewing out files that he begins shoving into a uncharacteristic mess of manilla folders, "have you got anything or did you just come as a spectator?" He appears strung together by the sheer force of his aggravation, and Aiber's not sure what to make of it, except perhaps some good clean fun.

"Who me?" he asks, finger poised toward his chest, eyes grinning innocence.

Light doesn't even bother to scoff. "Children are being murdered," he says, dead-set with disgust, but hardly wasting more than a singular moment on it before continuing his work, " _brutally._ I don't have time for this."

Aiber let's him brush past only because he knows he can make him stop whenever he wants to. And he wants to. "2-16-1 West," he says lowly, so that none of the other investigators hear. "Do you have time for that?"

Yagami doesn't quite freeze, so much as he slows, body relaxing in a way that could almost pass for natural, if not for the stilted distance suddenly splitting his eyes. His unease in apparent in how fiercely he's maintaining the veneer that covers it.

"What is that supposed to mean?" he asks, voice far more emotionless than it had been a moment ago.

Aiber shakes his head, calling for an abandonment of the act. "Don't play that role for me, Yagami, I'm not part of the crowd." He leans back, cracking his knuckles loudly, the noise splitting through the room. He's got too much coiled, anxious energy to know what to do with it.

Light's gaze doesn't shift and Aiber, tiring quickly of the stall-out, rolls his eyes.

"It's the address that I just sent a police dispatch team to, on suspicion of containing evidence pivotal to the Kira case." He grins wide, feeling like a toothpaste commercial.

"You don't have that authority," Light shoots back immediately, expression unchanged, voice even in tone.

"I don't, but Watari does." He glances back at the stagnant _W_ on the screen, then again towards Light, and even though he staves off the flush of panic - evidently well adept in concealing even instinctual bodily reactions - there is no doubt that this information has shaken him. Eyes level, suit trim, jaw set; Aiber imagine he can feel him spooling apart from the inside out. "Draw's up, darlin'," he says, throwing out a mocking wink just to sweeten the blow. "Time to show your cards. I'm confident we'll track down the missing king to your _queen_ \- " leering and far too proud to be a prelude to success, but he can't resist, " - any minute now."

In a moment, the stolid unease is gone and Light's mouth is twisting vicious, feeling rushing into his eyes as if he can no longer keep it contained. "Your attempts at intimidation are laughable," he snipes, voice low enough to dodge the microphones.

"Yeah," Aiber says, "yeah. I am a bit laughable at times, aren't I?" He strokes a loose hand across his chin, expression contorting facetiously. "But, on the other hand, I'm not going to be charged and executed anytime soon, so as it goes, I'm pretty comfortable with my place in this situation right now. How about you?"

Light's mouth opens and his limbs twitch a little and Aiber can taste the sticky copper of blood on instinct, trained well enough to know when to expect it - but the blow never comes. Light never hits him. It's disappointing, almost, because that's what he'd been banking on. Throwing down, getting it all out on the floor right before the big finish - victory known twice, and in different ways. L coming back to find them bruised like warriors.

Aiber is a lover, not a fighter, but he wants Yagami's blood on his hands if he wants anyone's.

But Light doesn't hit him. Doesn't do anything half so kind. Just tilts his head ever so, school boy charm radiating, and says, "You so sure about that execution thing, Thierry?"

And Aiber can't keep his mouth from falling open, can't help his eyes going wide or the way his stomach drops. He's dying, he's dying, he' s - not dying. Light doesn't have a pen. Nothing is written down, but he knows. He _knows_ , and it's only a matter of time.

L better get here soon.

Light evidently isn't going to wait for him, though, because abruptly and without a second victorious glance at Aiber, he turns on his heel, heading for the door. When he speaks it's loud enough that everyone in the room hears it clearly.

"I have to go," he announces, projecting earnest concern and wavering excitement into his voice with despicable ease. "If there's been a development in the Kira case, if there might be some chance that L has been found, I have to be there. I'm sorry." He gives one last emotive glance, then disappears into the elevator.

"Uh," Matsuda says dully, after several moments of confused silence, "what was he talking about?"

Aiber doesn't even glance at him before barreling out into the hallway. The staircase is on the right and it shouldn't take him that much longer to make it down than Yagami if he runs. Shoving open the door with one hand, he dials a cab company with the other, barely managing to catch his breath enough to order a vehicle to the curb.

If Kira's going to be there for the end, then he better bet his pasty Japanese ass that Aiber will be, too.

 

\---

 

He doesn't understand the mattress and he doesn't try to, just steps past it on the way in. The door is unlocked and the hall is dark and if there are monsters here, Mello can't see them. He's hasn't yet decided whether or not that's a good thing.

He wants to say B's name, and then he wants to say L's name, and the indecision as to which to choose leaves him silent. He takes slow steps inside, keeping his hand wrapped around the gun, and doesn't fully close the door behind him. He likes the thick strip of light that pours in from the street, and the easy escape-route, should he need it.

Not that there's much to be afraid of. B is here and B can take anything, can fight anything, and, it seems, can save anyone he chooses to. Ellie Cale, Merrie Kendwood - Mihael Keehl. He wracks up far more dead bodies than live ones, surely, but that the latter category even exists says something as to the complexity of the situation.

As he nears the end of the hall, Mello hears a tinny, weak sound from the far left, like the shrill scrape of metal, only muted. He clamps down on his gut reaction to cut and run, pulling the gun from his pocket as he takes the turn. The sound grows louder, his steps speed up - and what is he doing here? Why hadn't he brought Wedy? Why hadn't he gone with B in the first place? This would all just be so much easier were he not - _another clang, louder and more insistent, speeding him up_ \- alone.

He comes to another corner and he barely manages to unlatch the safety on the gun - repeating B's scatterbrained firearm tutorial over and over in his head - before he's turning abruptly, feeling ridiculous even as he does, like some shitty cop on TV, storming a crime scene.

From the noise he expects to be confronted directly with something at his first step. The reality is farther away, and harder to make out, roughly halfway down the hall and cast in dark blue shadows. He should have brought the flashlight. Why didn't he bring the flashlight? A lot of good a gun does him if he can't tell who - or what - he's shooting.

The smacking of flesh and the pained grunting propels him forward to find out.

For a moment all of the vague innuendos and sideways glances between Wedy and B support a mounting suspicion in him that he knows what he's about to walk in on, and why Wedy hadn't wanted him to, but he doesn't let the thought fully form, doesn't let the word shape in dirty whispers - the word pinning him to the floor as Watson had leered over him, and again clawing his throat through the stench of blood and flesh. He doesn't think it, doesn't dare, and in a moment he forgets that the idea had ever been there at all.

A shard of the glassy outdoor light spikes in from the boarded window above them and Mello doesn't have time to consider the logistics before he's sprinting forward, gun trained on B, and shouting, "Get off of him!"

L is pinned to the floor on his back, hair fanned out in feathery pools, looking like a sacrifice, like a _victim_ , lip split and teeth pink with the blood, and B is poised over him, fist reeled back for another hit and Mello should have known, he should _have known_ that the bastard couldn't be trusted, can't save anybody and shouldn't be given the chance to try.

His finger is brushing the trigger when B's stance falters, his shoulders sag, shadowed face twisting just out of sight. He says, "Mello?" in the wrong voice, with a note of disbelief, and that's the exact moment that Mello notices the writing on his white shirt. Writing that hadn't been there when B had gotten out of the car.

_To-Oh University_.

The words barely register, and even when he slots them in as something he'd read before - in Light Yagami's file, the college he attends - they don't permeate as having anything to do with the situation.

He barely even realizes he's speaking when he asks, with mirroring shock, "L?"

They stare at each other for a difficult moment, Mello's eyes adjusting well enough to the dark that he can make out the face squinting at him from its crouch - the thin jaw, the swoop of the nose, the browless stare. It's not the right one.

From the floor between them, spread out and battered, B croons, "Beyond Birthday," in a mockery of their confusion, arching onto his shoulders to grin at Mello upside down.

They've done studies on this sort of thing. The brain sees what it wants to see. If you show a subject a blurry picture, gradually bringing it more and more into focus, their brain will decide early on what it is being shown and latch onto the image as truth, even if further clues prove the estimation wrong. He'd expected B as the villain and he'd cast him in that role, and L - with L he hadn't known what to expect. Not this, certainly. There is blood on his knuckles and he's frowning artlessly, squinting up at Mello like a man abruptly woken from sleep and confronted with information he cannot yet process.

"You have a gun," L says, after the silence has stretched too taut.

Mello looks forward at his outstretched hand, the metal and the trigger finger, and drops his arm immediately. He hadn't realized he'd still been pointing it. "I didn't - " he starts, " I thought - "

Quicker than fits the pace of the conversation thus far, L forgoes questions and accusations and simply says, "You're with him," flatly, not glancing at B, who's grinning sumptuously up from the ground, body tilting against L's in a way that makes him tighten his grip on the loose collar of B's t-shirt, keeping him locked beneath him.

"I'm not - " Mello starts, but stops abruptly. It's not as if it isn't true. But it's more complicated than that. Justice has Armageddon's blood all over his hands and this is all a lot more complicated than that. He says, "I was looking for you."

L's eyes drop, then flash quickly back up, and it looks like he wants to say something but doesn't want Mello to hear. Grip loosening slightly on B, he sits back on his heels, body still straddling him flatly to the ground. "It looks like you've found me."

 

\---

 

There is only one thing that keeps Light from writing Thierry Morello's name on a scrap from the Death Note, and it's not that it might alight suspicions and it's not that L would be quietly viscous over it - it's simply that he doesn't _have time_.

Ryuk is with L, Ryuk is watching over him, but what is Ryuk going to do about cops? Deprive them of their produce? Maybe if it were Rem she'd devise some way of getting L out of there -as L leads to Light as Kira, which leads to Misa as the Second Kira, which leads to Misa's death, which is the bargaining chip which his professional relationship with Rem is founded on - but he has her out scouring the city for everyone's favorite rapist Shinigami and he's got no proper way of calling her back.

Children are dying and it tears him up but that isn't a priority right now. If L is found, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. Even if L doesn't implicate him - and he wouldn't at this point, would he? Not after _I love you_ is a stain on his tongue, he couldn't live without Light if he tried - there's still too much to explain, too much that even the taskforce wouldn't let alone, and especially not with Aiber leading the charge. And, more than that, he doesn't want it to end. He has the _perfect set-up_. He has everything he wants within his reach and he's not going to put it down without a fucking fight.

Leaning forward to shove another handful of bills at the cab driver, he grits, "Faster," and the man nods as the road starts to rush by them more quickly.

 

\---

 

Wedy's considering lighting up again simply out of boredom when she hears the revving of the engine coming around the corner and sees the police lights. Half of her prays to a god that she doesn't believe in that they just keep on driving, but the other half thinks that a cop chase could do something to liven up the proceedings.

When the turn signal blinks in her direction, though, she starts to panic ever so slightly. And even if she luxuriates in the scorch-hot feeling of messing with the law, she's not going to much enjoy being questioned by a couple of badge-toting amateurs.

She tugs at the handcuff around her wrist which keeps her bound to the front seat, gritting her teeth as she tries to jerk it off. No-go. Okay, okay, no big setback. Ducking down slightly, she scours the floor for something with which to pick the lock, but comes up empty. The cop cars are parking and there's at least two of them, maybe three, and she hears doors slamming and murmured voices and, okay, no, she doesn't like or trust Beyond Birthday, but she likes the police even less.

Breathing a curse as she rolls her eyes, she pulls off one of her shoes and then stretches forward to shove the sharp point of the heel into the plastic covering below the ignition. She uses all the strength she's got to tear it open with several rough jerks, and breaks two nails in the process. It's been a while since she's hot-wired a car, but she's done it enough times in her life not to have too much trouble now, aside from the limited reach that the cuff gives her.

Just like riding a bike. A stolen bike.

Once the engine's started, the real challenge is managing to reach the pedals, and then to turn the wheel with one arm still stuck to the back of the chair, but there's enough adrenaline rushing to boost the pain out of her immediate awareness. As she begins backing out of the alley, she hears the voices rise and glances in the rear-view to see several officers in full regalia - helmets and all - chasing after her. Grinning, she slams her bare foot down on the pedal.

She's not sure what part of the building Mello and B are in, but she figures following their breadcrumb trail is her best bet, and heads right through the front door - and the surrounding wall.

 

\---

 

Beyond Birthday is beneath him and Mihael Keehl is standing a few feet away, gun clenched in his palm, and this could be a Dickens Christmas special, what with the visitations of all his assembled ghosts. Failures both past and in the making, and here they've shown up with neither warning nor explanation, just when he'd seemed to escape all of his ties to the world. He half expects Father Octavian to limp in with his walker.

What he does not expect is a silver Honda to come careening down the hallway with an echoing crash and a bit of the building's infrastructure clinging to the side of it, but that happens, very suddenly and also without much advanced warning, pulling up beside their strange congregation and stopping abruptly.

The door flies open with what looks like a struggle and then one Merrie Kenwood, codename: Wedy, is raising her eyebrows at them over her extended leg, and saying, "Hey ladies, need a ride?"

From underneath him - body close and warm and twitching with an errant excitement that makes L want to recoil as much as it doesn't - B grunts with amusement. "Hey Merrie, I know you're eager to catch up with old pals, but you couldn't have walked? I signed a waver at the rental place, you know." His voice trills and his complaint is utterly hollow. If anything, he's probably jealous that he didn't get to drive through a wall.

"Bill me," Wedy says, looking them over, and like the good solider she is, not blinking at B's position under him, nor the blood that stains half of his jaw. "Now get in. The cops are here and someone needs to undo these cuffs so I can drive properly."

"You called the police?" Mello asks, voice straining on a disbelieving high note. And he's what? Fourteen now? Maybe fifteen. Too young to be wearing the trousers he is, certainly, and to be packing a piece that he likely has no clue of how to use.

Wedy rolls her eyes and L's got no idea how she'd gotten here or what she's doing mixed up with B and Mello - at least a Wammy's only team had made a certain sort of sense - but her presence is a comfort. She levels the world, brings him back up to Tokyo, 2004 and away from the swallowing cruelty of his youth with Beyond.

"If I'd wanted them here," she says sharply, "do you really think I'd have plaster dust in my hair right now?"

"It's a good look on you," B shoots back merrily, trying to sit up.

L's weight is displaced and the shift makes him panic and shove, slamming B back to the floor with a quick, quavering hand. B grins under him, evidently enjoying the contact, and L feels his skin trying to unravel itself right off his bones.

There are voices echoing down the hallway. Kira's castle is being stormed, and this is the second wave.

Mello is the first one to move, shoving the gun in his pocket and moving to grab L by the shoulder and haul him up. L's pretty sure none of the Wammy orphans have ever touched him before - alpha and beta notwithstanding - and the contact is strange and almost illicit. "Come on."

He jerks out of Mello's reach on instinct, says, "I can't," before he can fully think it through.

And what is that? What is that, really? Love? Devotion? Do such things even exist through an objective lens, or is it all just circumstantial. Sure, he loves Light when the only available option is to love Light, but several doors have just opened up, and the cavalry in leather has come to take him away, and how could there possibly be a theoretical bit of romanticism that is more important than this? Escape. The whole world. Light Yagami is just one person and he's not half as important as he thinks he is.

"What?" B mumbles up at him as the hurried footsteps in the distance grow ever closer. "Think Kira would miss you too much?"

L looks at him and he wonders what Light would say to see him like this, straddling the beaten body of his own personal copy-cat, struggling his way through a muted emotional crisis in the span of seconds. He wouldn't understand. He knows L but he only knows a tiny part of him, an updated version of him crafted for the moment. L's not even sure that he is anything but moments, and the adjustments that he makes to himself in order to inhabit them sequentially.

If he has an identity at all, it's subject to who he's crushing underneath his body, whose hand is reaching for his shoulder, who is frowning at him expectantly from out of a car. He loves Light Yagami, perhaps - and even that much is subject to interpretation - but he doesn't love him enough for it to make any difference.

He stands, detaching from his locked hold onto B. He can see the press of his erection through his replica jeans but he pretends he can't.

"If you haven't noticed," L says, voice gone as unmoved as he can get it, holding up his chained arm, "my mobility is rather limited."

It's barely a second after he's spoken that B's up after him, gripping the chain in one large pale hand, and tugging at it with the other, splitting the metal with a sharp jerk and tinny clang and barely any apparent effort exerted. L just watches flatly, even as Mello's eyebrows flare up and even Wedy gives an appreciative whistle.

"Show off," L mumbles, pulling away to climb directly into the passenger's seat without a glance back. The leather is cold with the night and the shouting policemen are closing in on them and L's head spins with the headlights and the movement and the violence of the moment after so much stillness.

"Always," B laughs out, closing his door for him like the ruptured gentleman he's always wanted to be, right back to his muddy jaunts in his Wellington boots at age eight, his hands a bridge over every puddle that had threatened with alacrity to turn into a trapdoor.

He swings himself into the backseat, pulling Mello in after him with a familiarity that appears to make everyone else uncomfortable - Mello included - and reaching down to fiddle Wedy's handcuffs open. L wants to ask, but doesn't. He can't speak. It's not even been a month but he thinks he'd forgotten what the world looks like.

"Go, baby, go!" B calls forward, scrunching himself up between the two front seats to lean on his elbows and pant up at them like a dog demanding attention.

Wedy shifts her position slightly, then slams down on the gas, tearing down the hall and through a plate glass door just as the cops begin rounding the corner.

 

\---

 

When Aiber gets there, Yagami is standing in front of a gaping tear in the facade of 2-16-1 West. For a glinting, strange half-moment he thinks that he'd done it himself. That some Kira power of immense magnitude had manifested itself and destroyed half the building.

It's only when he sees the tire treads that he realizes that the force in question was probably a car.

The night is thick with smoky light and men in uniform making rounds and asking questions and Light stands at the center of it, a stationary point in the frazzled buzz of panic that streams through the ranks and even has a few low-rent criminals in the area poking their heads out - only to duck back down as soon as they spot the cops. He is lean and dejected and his hair glows a triumphant, movie-set gold in the flashbulb light.

Aiber passes him without a glance and he barely pays any mind to the shouts of, "Hey, this is a crime scene buddy!" simply flashing his L-approved badge back without waiting for them to read it. He walks the whole building, following the trail of rubble and skid marks, but gets distracted by the yellow tape and the group of officers halfway down one of the hallways. There are men in sterile coats taking crime scene photos and blood samples. Blood on the floor. Not enough to fill a body, not half enough, but it's there and it's not even dry.

There's a quiet man with an uneven mustache cutting through some metal that's latched onto the wall, slipping it into an evidence bag with trembling precision. No, not just metal - cuffs. Industrial strength, special order. They're familiar.

He wants to grab the bag out of the man's hands, shout at them all, demand answers. Instead, he says, "We'll need this all sent over as soon as possible. L's orders." He flashes his badge again. He's far too sober for this.

They tell him there's nothing else here. They tell him there had been a car. A struggle. An escape and a chase, but lost. _We lost 'em._ We lost him.

He goes back to the front of the building. Yagami is still standing in the same place and Aiber stands beside him and for once he doesn't want to hit him or kiss him or watch him fry. He says, "How'd you do it?" The barely restrained rage has all drained out into a frail dejection, and everything moves slower and faster than it should, whirring around him in thick tides.

Light looks at him and there's a panic and a fear that is so sloppy, so unconfined and off the usual finely printed course, that Aiber almost believes that he believes himself when he says, "I didn't."

 

\---

 

Misa is walking home alone. Misa has barely gone anywhere alone in the last several months. Rem at her side, Light in her sights, L's watchful eyes trailing doggedly behind - she'd always been guarded. Not like hiding under a bed all night while your mom and dad bleed out in the next room. Not like humming to yourself to chase away the street demons in one lonely alley or another. Not like men with knives and torn up grins and an eye on her throat.

She'd been safe.

She is not safe now.

She is not a child but she is thrown about like one, limbs weak, heart throbbing - everyone's _heart-throb_ \- and the monsters who lives at every corner of her view are here, tearing and taking. Or well, one monster in particular.

Orange and white, like citrus foam, and laughing. But scared. She doesn't understand the sensory information that she processes, just feels reality shake around her in a whirlwind and she wishes Rem was holding her hand and Light was holding her heart and even L and his goons had a blindfold for her eyes so she wouldn't have to witness her own destruction.

That is what this is. She is being _destroyed_. It's the one thing that she has left, that she's truly everhad, and it's being taken away. Wrenched from her grip.

_Hand it over_. _Hand it over and it'll stop hurting_.

She's weak, she's too weak to fight for it. She could never be the hero of the story. She can't even save the one thing he'd trusted her with.

_Give me death. Give it back_.

She gives. It goes. She can feel it flooding out of her, gone in an instant. She lets go and the Death Note is gone, disappeared, and the monster with it. She falls on the ground, the concrete staining her tights, body cold and clouded, too afraid to think, to ask the question.

It comes to her anyway, overriding the fear: _what is a Death Note?_

 

_\---_

**tbc.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahem, this chapter is a bit shorter than i maybe wanted it to be, but adding anymore in would send it lasting for another 10k, so here seemed like a good ending point. i hope you guys don't hate lxb because that's going to be a major theme from here on out (as if it wasn't already, heh). that said, this is still an lxlight fic and their relationship is still utterly integral. and yeah, things can only get more fucked up from here.
> 
> (also you might have noticed the listed pairings on this fic have BEEN SLIGHTLY UPDATED.)
> 
> thank you so much for reading and, as always, reviews and comments and general acknowledgement of this fic's existence make my heart light up like nothing else. i couldn't do this without you guys. thank you!


	24. where the heart has been

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello i am late late late with this, which is a product, no doubt, of going to visit my gf in california, meaning i have a lot less free time to write/edit/etc than i usually do, and getting sick from a slight (unintentional) overdose on pain medication. i'm healthy now, tho still with the bae, and by all mean i should have been done with this chapter about two weeks ago, but here i am, late and apologetic. i'm sorry, please forgive me, and i hope this chapter is of passable quality?
> 
> this is probably the most LxB-heavy things have been so far, and for those readers who don't jive with that pairing, i'm really sorry - but it's not going to go away anytime soon, bc it's very dear to me, and a dynamic that was always going to be important to this fic. i don't want to lose people over this, because you all are amazing and unbearably kind, but it's very important to me that i write the content that i enjoy writing and think will make a good story over what will most please the crowd. sincere apologies, and if you can't look past the pairing discrepancies then i understand, and thank you so much for sticking with me this long.
> 
> thank you so much to all of you in general. i could never have gotten so far or have maintained the urge to keep going without you guys. much love and i hope this chapter is semi-readable? i love you all.

_ "You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since – on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to displace with your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be." _

\- Charles Dickens, _Great Expectations_

 

\---

 

L's hands like a vice-grip on him, squeezing the October air out of his lungs. L's hands a prayer to a god he'd forgotten. L's hands. Light's head against the wall, his cheeks hot, his eyes glassy, the rest of the room covered in the pearly sheen of dawn in autumn. 

"That feels," he breathes, and then doesn't finish the sentence.

L strokes his fingers up and down, pressure receding, and Light makes a noise that he will later disclaim any association to. He opens his eyes and he sees L smiling at him, small and silent, and peculiarly comforting, despite the pangs in his stomach that tell him it shouldn't be. You shouldn't love your captor. You shouldn't love a man who accuses you of murder, locks you up without probable cause, and touches you in places that no one's ever touched.

You shouldn't love a man. You shouldn't love.

"Feels?" L asks slyly, blunt nails brushing Light's cock, making his hips jerk and his spine tingle. "Bad? Painful? I mean it, that sentence could end anywhere, Light-kun. I wouldn't want to continue something you didn't enjoy."

Light grits his teeth, tries to smile through it. "Then you should probably stop talking."

L hums slightly, reintroducing the chokehold to Light's cock and jerking swiftly, and it shouldn't feel half as good as it does, but it _does_. He ought to be the one sitting up, smiling, unaffected and barely interested, instead of spread out, too weak with arousal to hold himself up. He knows he must make a pretty sight, fodder for the Kira profile. He knows L is going to think of this later, hold it close to his chest, the way he does with victories. Maybe when Light presses him to some wall or another and asks for what L so willingly gives.

Maybe years from now, when Light has been proven innocent and the real Kira has been caught and L is far away on some important case or another.

That's how it has to end up, isn't it? Light thrusts his hips, grunts and winces, feels a pressure welling up in him, heavy and all-encompassing, body strung out and desperate for just - that - one - 

Touch.

He comes. His thighs quiver and he resents the man whose hands stroke him through it just as much as he wants to keep him around always, there and never gone. They could rule the world if they had time, and space, and each other. They could do anything.

But L has to go. There's no other way this could end up.

  

\---

 

**one month later.**

 

\---

 

There's a ringing in his ears, like after an explosion. Everyone keeps talking at him but he can barely hear it.

"Sir, this is a crime scene. I'll need you show me some form of identification. Sir?"

"Oh man, Light, you should have seen him, he was like another L, except, like, _crazy_. And then the kid with the gun and the lady with the car, she just went straight through the wall, I didn't even know she was there! And the police came and I don't know what's up with that, it's like everybody got the memo about your hide-out on the same night. It was weird. You should have been here, but I guess that would have been bad because then they would have arrested you, but - "

"Where is he, Yagami? Goddammit, would you stop playing the tragedy and just _look at me_? You're going to have to start explaining at some point, because I don't think you're gonna be able to make this mess disappear with a sob story and a pretty lawyer this time."

"Sir? Sir, can you hear me?"

"It's weird, I think I remember that lady, Light. Yeah, yeah, you know her. She was that blonde, you know? The one who always stank and hung around with L and, well… this guy."

Everything snaps into focus. Aiber's at one side and there's a rookie policemen peering through his helmet on the other. Ryuk hangs above them like a gaudy parade floating, grinning down.

"What?" he says, to no one in particular, but after the word is out, he realizes he's talking to Ryuk, who's pointing down at Aiber with one long, clawed finger and a grin that splits across the sunrise that's edging up behind them.

Everyone starts speaking again at once, but he only follows the thread of what Ryuk's saying: "I said, you remember that blonde lady, right?" And there's something about his eyes that seem too self-aware, leading even, but there are too many issues already so he doesn't question it, just locks his mind on the words and makes himself process them. Blonde lady, with L and Aiber. Shit.

"Wedy," he says, eyes snapping to Aiber. When did he even get here? "Where is she?"

"What? I don't know," Aiber snaps, "and if I did I wouldn't be sharing that, or any, information with you. You're the one who needs to start talking, and fast, before I have them sweep this place for your prints." He rubs at his stubble. "Actually, you know what, I think I'll have them do that anyway. Boys!" 

The officer is wide-eyed in his helmet and obviously dubious about taking any old orders flung around by an overloud fop with some fancy papers. "I - " he starts, looking between Aiber and Light uncomfortably.

Light rolls his eyes, reeling in his spiraling panic and coming back to himself, in his suit. The professional, the golden boy, the one with the answers. "Morello-san," he says, quiet and stern, commanding attention, "I know you're disappointed that we didn't find what we were looking for, but that's no reason to go flinging around accusations."

He watches Aiber's jaw lock up. He doesn't want to be afraid of Light, but he is, and if everything in the entire world hadn't just gone to _shit_ , Light would be thoroughly enjoying this moment.

"Sir," the policeman starts again, and it's not clear who he's addressing but it doesn't matter anyway. The morning pours over the horizon in prickly, uneven beams of light and it's beautiful, maybe, but it doesn't matter.

"I'm with him," Light says, nodding to Aiber, and then turns in a random direction and strides away with every appearance of knowing exactly what he's doing and where he's going to do it, and betting on the fact that Aiber will follow.

The big lug doesn't disappoint, and Light hears the gritted agreement of, "He's with me," before the heavy patter of steps catching up with him. Ryuk floats above them, grinning, wings shining with a pale glow in the sunlight. 

"You think you're really cute, huh?" Aiber asks, following Light across the alley, and the words are looser and funnier than they should be, tone not quite reflecting the loathing that Light knows to be there. "Fucking adorable. I'm not much for violence but I'd kill you myself here and now if I thought it would do any good."

Light turns a sharp smile on him. "The feeling is so mutual," he says. "Now tell me about Wedy."

"I tell you?" Aiber barks incredulously. "Why don't you tell me? You obviously know a lot more than anybody else here."

Light's eyes laugh even as his insides twist around on each other. "Yes, but that's true no matter where I go." 

"Oh, cut the crap, Yagami. I know you're Kira, you know you're Kira, and there's no point playing it off because I don't have proof and the suits all dance to your music anyway. Nobody believes my accusations now and they're not gonna suddenly start just because I _pinky promise_ that you said something incriminating."

Ryuk laughs. "He's got a point, Light." 

Light rubs at his jaw, wants to snap at Ryuk to _shut-up_ but doesn't like how it'll make him look. He's saving the crazy card for when he doesn't have any options left, but hopefully it won't come to that. He looks sideways at Aiber. "What about Watari?" he asks. Not giving anything away, but not being particularly subtle, either. He hasn't got time for subtlety anymore.

"Already knows you're Kira," Aiber says flatly.

Light breathes in once, tucking in all the loose strands - L's hands a prayer to a god he now remembers, L superiority as he'd clicked the handcuff chain back on. Had it just been a game? Had he known he was saved and played the loyal pet just to make Light relax, get sloppy. No, no, he can't think of it, if he thinks of it he won't stop and he needs his mind for _other things_ now. Like finding him.

He shoves it all down, and says, "I would protest, but I know you won't believe me and I really can't be bothered to have a pissing contest with you right now, but okay, for the sake of argument, let's say I am Kira? Then what am I doing here?" He constructs it in his head as he speaks, laying out the trail even as he follows it to its end. "If L was in this building and you found him and sent the police after him and told me abut it - like an idiot, I might add - then where is he? Did I do something with him? Get rid of the evidence? If I did, then why the hell would I come here in person, implicating myself? Because I'm stupid? Because you know that's not the right answer."

Aiber shakes his head, rubs at his wide, flushed cheeks. "No, no, you're not. Full of shit, maybe, but you're smart. So smart that you might have… thought of this in advanced and come here in a panic specifically to cover your tracks." He says it but Light can tell he doesn't believe it, and that's good, that's enough to use to sway him.

"Were that the case," he says, "then why would I be having this conversation with you?" 

Aiber looks at him for a long moment, then grits his teeth, eyes rolling. "Fuck. Fuck, you know? I fucking hate this. I don't care about your pride, or his. Or mine. I couldn't give a shit about your grand plan. I just want him back." He pinches his brow, looks starchy and pained, and if Light's whole mind wasn't twitching with every moment of inaction, he might be able to conjure up some feeling about this - pity, hate, amusement; something vague to swim in the back of his head - but it's not there now.

"Then tell me," Light says again, "about Wedy."

"What about her?" Aiber snaps, evidently caved enough to be willing to give up the information Light needs.

"When did you last see her?" 

Aiber breathes out. "In person? A day or so after L went missing, just before she skipped town."

"And not in person?"

"She called me. Couple of days of ago."

"How many days, exactly?" Light pushes. Just like interrogating a suspect. Aiber is as fine an example of the dodgy, under-intelligent criminal as one can find. 

"I don't know," he says. "Three, four, maybe? What's today?"

Light ignores him, skipping over that. "Where was she calling from? What was the call about? You've gotta give me something to work with, Thierry."

"Stop saying my name, _Light_ ," Aiber snaps back.

"Afraid?" Light asks him, forgoing the investigation for a moment to give into the oft-ignored childish urge to bait. Usually he exercises it on L, who plays so well at that sort of thing, but at the moment as much isn't really an option.

Aiber snorts. "Of imminent death? Sure. But also, you're pronouncing it wrong." 

Light rolls his eyes, dropping it. "The phone call," he prods.

"Was from London," Aiber says, acquiescing, a meaty hand ruffling his already thoroughly ruffled hair. "She was asking about, I don't know, some case Watari had her on. Not related to Kira," he adds quickly, "supposedly."

Light's insides are clenching a little, fizzy and agitated, and he has to put effort into calming himself enough to process the information. "Supposedly?"

Aiber breathes out. Ryuk's eyes slide back and forth between them, like he's judging a match. 

"She was tracking an escaped convict. One of L's old cases. She wanted to know if I knew anything about him or if L had ever mentioned him before. I told her no, and that was more or less it, until…" 

"Until what?" Light presses, but Aiber's turning away from him, digging his phone out of his pocket hurriedly and punching in a number. "Hey!" Light calls after him.

 "I have to call Watari," Aiber says, waving him off and stumbling a few feet away to press the receiver to his ear.

Light's not even close to letting him slip away that easy, not without any answers, or even a vague idea of which direction to go. Wedy, he knows, and some unnamed former catch of L's who'd broken out - in London? Fascinating as studying L's old cases might have been on any other day of the week, under any other sunrise, Light's got far too many catastrophes circling him at the moment to have a thought to spare to anything that isn't integral to helping him solve at least one of them.

"Hey, wait!" he calls again, following Aiber, but he only makes it a few steps before his own phone goes off and he's digging into his jacket pocket - hoping, hoping, hoping - but no, don't hope, that sort of thing is dangerous and -

It's Misa. Light's teeth grit and his eyes roll and he would really like to be able to press ignore, because she is really the last thing he wants or needs on his plate at the moment, but there's always the slim possibility that she's got relevant information - either delivered by Rem, or garnered on her own, because twist of all twists is that she's not actually half as stupid as she acts, and especially with those eyes of hers, she's been known to come in handy every once in a while.

He slows his steps, answering the call and vowing to make her pay virulently if it's nothing but a giggly _good morning._ "What?" he snaps into the phone, too stressed and scattered to bother with pleasantries. 

"Jeez, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, huh?" she titters back, tone peppy and bubblegum pink as always, but there's something off-kilter about it that he doesn't bother to think all the through, mostly for lack of room in his head to puzzle over more quandaries.

"Actually," he tells her, not bothering to disguise his annoyance, "I didn't sleep at all."

There's a breath on the other end of the line, and he can hear laughing and clanging muted in the background. He watches Aiber, who's halfway down the alley by now and out of eavesdropping distance, which is a pro as far as Light's phone call goes but a con when it comes to Aiber's.

"Well, that's a cute coincidence, I guess. Cause, uh, neither did I," Misa says, cheerful but strained, like she's bracing for a blow. "That's actually what I'm calling about! My shoot went really late last night and I stopped in at this 24-hour diner on my way home and I've sorta been here since. I was wondering if maybe you could come pick me up?" 

Everything halts for a moment and he has to repeat her words back in his head in order to confirm that he hadn't misheard the _ridiculous bullshit_ that she'd just uttered. "Excuse me?" he says, hoping that his tone is enough to scare her into hanging up. "You want me to what?"

"Look," Misa says hurriedly, "I know you're really busy with this new case and all, but I'm just - I got really spooked, okay? I feel like someone's watching me. And I think as, you know, someone who's had stalkers before, I'm kinda justified in being freaked out?" 

Light grits his teeth. "Yeah," he forces out, "I guess I have some idea of what that might be like."

Strangely enough, she doesn't seem to cower much beneath his disgust, or the obvious accusations he's flinging at her feet. Whatever, she was never very quick, but he _does not have time for this_.

"Come on, Light," she begs, because she is a begging thing, pathetic - tiny hands, tiny voice, tiny thighs and a heart full of love and loathing; and he loathes to think about it. "You can't spare half an hour to come walk me home?"

"No, actually," he tells her, keeping his eyes locked on Aiber, getting ready to hang up in the next ten seconds, whether she let's it go or not. "My hands are kind of full at the moment." He'd fill her in on the details of L's escape if he thought he could manage to do it unnoticed in a location swarming with police, but he's not going to take the chance for something so inconsequential. "Where's Rem, anyway? Shouldn't she be the one playing bodyguard for you?"

"Who?" Misa ask, voice sharp and squeaky, and for a moment Light thinks maybe she'd just misheard, maybe the bustle of her piece of shit diner is drowning out the words, maybe the reception's bad, but - no. No. "Fine, if you don't want to do it, I can get somebody else. I just thought I'd ask because you're my boyfriend and that's what boyfriends _do_." 

She's talking like - she's talking like she has no idea about anything. She's talking like an idiot. And not just the powdered, plush, pink-lipped stick of dumbed-down dynamite she likes to play for the crowd, but like she really is only half there. Like she'd completely _missed_ the last month, or something. Forgotten it.

"Misa," he says, a wave of panic rising in him, "where's your Notebook?"

"What? Light, are you feeling okay? Maybe you really should just go get some sleep. You sound pretty wrecked."

"Misa, _where is the Notebook?_ " his voice is so deep and hard and destroyed, _wallowing_ \- why is this happening, why is everything coming apart? - that Aiber glances his way, but Light doesn't care right now, can't possibly make himself care, there's too much going on, too much to think about, to handle and, fuck, _why?_  

"What notebook, Light? Gosh, you're freaking me out. Yoshi keeps the book with all my appointments in it, but that's the only thing I - "

"Stop talking," he snaps, and she listens immediately.

God, they're really fucked now. He doesn't know how or when or _why_ she gave up the Death Note, or who she could have given it to - Rem? Why would Rem do this when she knows that Misa's eyes are most of the reason Light even keeps her around? Is she stupid? Does she want Misa to die? He just knows that this is a loose end he has to knot before he can do anything else. L will have to wait a bit, and the dying children even longer, because Light's just got too much going on and not half enough time or reach to handle it all. 

He needs _help_. He needs L. If L were here he would help.

But L's not here. _L left him_. He can't - he can't think about this. He doesn't have time.

"Misa, tell me the address of the diner, and then _stay put_ ," he orders, and she listens like the good girl she so longs to be, reciting back the numbered street to him in a waveringly confused voice. "I'll be there as soon as I possibly can," he says, then hangs up.

Turning, he strides directly over to Aiber, whose phone call appears to have ended only a few seconds previously. Squaring off against one another in a half-there, almost panicked fashion, they both say, "I have to go," at roughly the same moment, and then stare with stumbling offense at one another.

Light gives a quick, jerky nod. "This conversation isn't over," he says.

"You're damned right it's not," Aiber agrees with a sharpness to his tone that suggests anything but agreement.

They both turn, heading in opposite directions, but Light hasn't gone a few steps - or let his mind cycle through more than two or three possible courses of action - before he stops and calls over his shoulder, "Wait, the escaped the convict, the one Wedy asked you about? What was his name?"

Aiber rolls his eyes, doesn't look like he wants to answer, but seems to want to waste time dodging around it even less. "Something weird," he grunts. "Beyond Birthday. Yeah, like the English words. That mean anything to you?"

Aiber asks the question but he doesn't wait around for the answer, just takes off, climbing into a dirty cab that's appeared on the corner. Light stands there, willing himself to move. The sun is almost fully up now. The name doesn't mean anything to him, but it _does_ mean something that as soon as it had been uttered, Ryuk had started laughing hysterically.

 

\---

  

**nine years earlier.**  

 

\---

  

B wrestles him to the ground through the balmy Saturday wind, laughing all the way down. His fingernails are too sharp, need to be trimmed, but he smells like fresh earth and his skin is warm and it's easier than it should be to go down with him.

"Anyone could see," L says, because they're on a hill, framed on all sides by rolling, picturesque countryside of the sort that makes it onto postcards in the Winchester tourist shops, the orphanage a hulking grey blotch on the landscape behind them.

"Anyone is nothing to me," B replies, rolling onto his back and off of L to lie by his side, like some kind of cheesy teen romance that inevitably involves a romantic picnic in a field, and long hours spent staring adoringly into one another's eyes.

He doesn't look at B. "That doesn't make sense."

"Makes sense to me," Beyond says, picking blades of grass and flinging them at L, childish even for all his punishing intellect. 

"Lots of things make sense to you which have absolutely no basis in reality," L says, sitting up, watching the forest quiver in the breeze, new buds shaking on their branches. If he had any sense at all he'd get B lost in that woods, and leave him there - Hansel and Gretel with the breadcrumbs all eaten up - and come home alone, to a safe and quiet bedroom where he could rest and think and save the world in peace, without constantly batting the devil off his heels. "Want to tell me again about red numbers? About the constellations written in the back of your head? About _gods and monsters_ and all the poetry that makes me so ill?" 

He does look at B then, tracing patterns in the dirt, drawing his skinny calve up along L's - such a sloppy seduction, and somehow it always works - and he thinks, _no_ , calling him the devil is flattery. Spawn of Satan, Little Beast, Monster. So much power given to a little boy, so much destruction rent just through grappling for something. L does not like him and does not love him, but he thinks he understands him in that moment, spread out under the cool spring sun.

He is just looking for something to believe in.

Then, like always, like L should have inevitably expected, B proves him wrong - and silly and incompetent and _utterly_ _naive_. It's one peaceful moment, just two boys on a hill, and then suddenly B is jerking himself up, grabbing L by the hair and gritting, "Don't patronize me, you little fucking saint."

He kisses L, and he hasn't done that in weeks, and it's sharp and wet and wrong and so L knees him in the stomach, throws him off, and watches B laugh himself to the ground. 

L wipes at the back of his mouth, sits there, doesn't get up. He should run to the forest. He should run to the church. He stays, says, "Then don't throw yourself at my feet." It's cruel and he knows it, feels it as he says it and there's so much power in how easily he can convince himself _not to care_ \- not about this, or the hillside, or anything; just justice, justice, justice or else a vague and formless shape that looks something like it.

He tries to move after a moment, but B grapples for him, one mangy hand wrapping around his arm, keeping him locked down on the ground with him, and he asks, "Do you think I could get up? Do you think I could possibly ever get up?"

"Yes," L snaps, trying fruitlessly to shake him off. His touch is warm and cool, uneven like the tides of his adoration - going from violent to gentle, abuse in the form of absolution and vice versa. This is not a thing he'd asked for but it's a thing he has. "You're going to have to, one day."

Beyond's touch fades off, hand dropping, and he falls onto his back like the little drama queen that he is, and L - L is too tired to run. He falls back next to him, reverting to their original positions, but then suddenly B is curling sideways against him, lips to his shoulder, like a prayer, fingers soft and grasping and L's not sure, but he thinks he hears him mumble - between the breath and the wind and the wild fascinations of cruelty - "Not if I keep you down here with me."

They jerk one another off on the hilltop, where anyone can see, and while B is pressed against him, tripping through uneven breaths, L thinks then that he doesn't know if he likes him, doesn't know if he loves him, but is very, very sure that he does not understand him at all.

 

\---

  

**seven years later.**

  

\---

  

When the Los Angeles BB murder cases happen, when L is sitting in his hotel room, puzzling over the clues and the bodies and the neatness of it all, he decides that Beyond Birthday must have finally gotten up.

Weeks later, when B lights himself on fire in a stranger's apartment, and fails spectacularly, he decides that no, he is wrong about him again.

 

\---

 

**two years later.**

 

\---

 

They ditch the Honda six blocks from the scene of their escape - L counts - and then stand around stoically admiring their shoes on a shaded sidewalk while B steals them another car through a neanderthal means which makes Wedy rolls her eyes and mumble, "Amateur." 

It's a half hour later, behind a new wheel and next to a broken window, that she taps on the dashboard, and L's eyebrows go up but he doesn't say anything, because he knows that B will. 

"Hey, Merrie," he mumbles from the back, feet propped up on the armrest between the two front seats, leaning lackadaisically back beside Mello, "you know how L and I grew up together? Well, we learned morse code together, too."

He grins as Wedy stops tapping. Beside B, Mello squints, appears to be focusing quite hard, and then lets his jaw drop open as he looks from Wedy's hand over to L and back again, and says, "You were asking him to escape? Without _me_?"

Pulling the car into the intersection and taking the left turn off the main street, Wedy puffs her bangs out of her eyes and glances sideways at L. "Jesus, what the kind of school are you running? World War II prep, or something?" Her tone is casual but he can see her nails digging into the leather of the wheel and she is afraid.

"Or something," he says. Then, after some internal debate: "Don't worry. He'll let you go. Both of you." He doesn't look back at B but it doesn't take an enormous amount of effort for everyone in the car to know exactly who he's talking about. 

The wind is cold and it whistles past them through the shattered glass and L is in a car with a woman he has fucked and a boy he has ignored and a man he has done both of those things with and to and he does not feel guilty or ashamed or afraid. He doesn't feel anything. It's all down somewhere swimming at the bottom, but he can't let it rise or he will be sick and he will yell and he will run. It aches, it aches, it still aches just to be here. There's still a cuff around his wrist and half a chain dragging on the floor and the sound of early morning traffic pulls at his skin like tiny hooks, making him itchy.

Mello is older and more worn around the edges than the last time L had seem him - sometime at Wammy's a year or two ago, just in passing, nothing very notable and nothing he'd bothered to note - and if he still retains the sparking naivete that has always kept him running, he keeps it locked down flat and undetectable when he turns to B and says, directing the question to no one in particular, "Will he?" 

B scoops himself out of his sprawl and leans over to Mello to cup his chin, taking a good look at both sides of his face as if examining a purchase, and says cheerily, "Well, I was going to ransom you and make my fortune, but jeez, you don't actually have any parents who'll pay, do you?" He lets him go with a stiff jerk, arm bending at the wrist like a broken marionette. "Gosh, foiled again." 

"B," L says, watching him in the rearview.

"L," B says.

" _B._ "

" _L._ "

It's an old game in new territory and he doesn't like having spectators. L hunches over his tucked leg, chin resting against his knee, and wants to be in the apple grove, where at least the smell of cool dirt is a familiar backdrop. Tokyo smells like smog, like Light's cologne, and it doesn't matter much that B had come from around here, because this is not where L had known him. L knew rainy English mornings and sweet tea and roaring fireplaces beside which they had torn each other to shreds.

This car is an ugly slate green and the world doesn't line up right being in it with so many people from so many places. He's got neat boxes in his head to secret away the worst of the clutter but the stacks are all coalescing into newer, bigger, stranger stacks and no one's giving him enough time to sort through them.

He'd left Light. Light had never come, Light had not saved him, because Light is not and has never been a savior. So that makes two of them. And the devil makes three. Tack on Wedy and Mello and it's far and away a crowd. 

So he says, "Let them go and I won't put up a fight. I'll go with you and I'll play whatever games you want to play. Just let them go." Always the sacrifice. Is it just his luck or does he truly lay himself on the alter? 

Mello sits stiffly and Wedy raises a brow at him, and everyone flinches collectively when B throws his head back and laughs uproariously. He does so love doing that. L digs his fingers into the skin of his calves and wants to open the door and throw himself out onto the sidewalk and run like hell. But he doesn't. It doesn't matter why.

The alter is there, and somebody has to do it. 

B sits up, leaning closer to the front, and says, "Uh, who here is being held against their will?"

Automatically, Wedy's hand goes up, the other keeping a tight grip on the steering wheel and bringing them down a side-street, through a section of Tokyo that L is not wildly familiar with. Mello doesn't move and doesn't say a word. 

"Nonsense, Merrie," B responds, waving Wedy off with a loose hand. "I offered to kill you back in London." The smile pulls tight on his face, too gentle to be a snarl, but shaped like one. "And we all know that death is the truest freedom."

From the front, all Wedy says is, "Then you must be one hell of a prisoner," with a strained little smirk of her own. 

B collapses back over-dramatically. "Don't I know it." Dipping his forehead against the window glass, he instructs, "Turn here," and Wedy listens without question - which is her way, maybe, but only when the pay is good and the job is reasonable, which neither is at present - and L's not sure he likes feeling like the odd man out.

He draws his fingers along his temples, exhausted in a wired sort of way, hopped up on the movement and the offset beams of morning light that glare in through the windows, but still drooping with the chemicals released by orgasm, and the airy groundlessness of his current universe unraveling at all its seams. 

"They go, and I stay," he says. "That's the deal." He's not sure if he's committing to it, if it's a lie or a promise or if he even has any intentions at all in this point. He may as well be an animal, utterly reactionary.

He looks over his shoulder at B, because he guesses that he probably has more of an idea of what L means than L does himself.

There's a drawn out smile and Mello is tapping the pads of his fingers against the leather of the seats and the car is clicking its turn signal and the world moves in stripes of slow motion and fast forwarded action. L thinks he'd missed whole spans of minutes on the way here, but now feels caught between every second like they've got hollows.

Beyond makes a wet clicking sound with his tongue, glances sideways at Mello, then shrugs. "Okay," he says flatly, no particular resistance, and L doesn't know what he's doing but he doesn't like it. "They're free to go. Soon as we get to the house I'll let them walk. They can even go squeal to Quillish if they want, doesn't matter much to me." 

L wants to let out a breath but it doesn't come, because things are never this easy with B. So where's the other shoe and when is it dropping?

"What?" Mello snaps abruptly from directly behind L's chair. Ah, there it is. He turns to B, and L can see his pale brow set heavy, his mouth the stubborn line that it'd grown itself into for years. "That's it? After all that it's just 'see ya, wouldn't wanna be ya?' Really?"

Withering theatrically under the weight of Mello's evident betrayal, B simply ducks his head innocently - a complete mockery of the situation, not even trying for subtlety - and says, "Sorry Mihael, but who am I to refuse a direct order from our illustrious benefactor?" He breathes the words out with a dreamy sort of schoolgirl eloquence, batting his eyes up at L, who's frowning in the front seat.

Looking between them, Mello - who doesn't seem to buy into B's whole schtick, thank god, but also doesn't seem wholly immune to his charms, such as they are - clears his throat and faces L with a sort of soldier-boy dedication and respect, the kind that all the children at Wammy's direct towards him and which he has very little time for or idea what to do with.

He says, "L, with all - due respect," - stumbling over the first few words, voice gone deeper and more self-aware -"I dropped out of Wammy's, hitch-hiked to London, became a _drug trafficker_ , was almost killed a couple different times, and - and teamed up with _him_ in order to find you." The look he shoots B is not quite as fearful or derogatory as L would like it to be, and he takes note of that. "I'm sorry, but I'm not letting you out of my sight until you're back where you should be, and… " He stops, stumbles more, still a child and too ashamed of pride.

"And," L finishes for him, "you're given proper credit?"

Mello looks down at his lap and L watches him slump, cowed, and feels his footing coming back slightly, the ground reappearing under his feet. 

That is until Wedy pulls them into a beaten garage next to an old stone house that glints ugly in the morning light and, rolling her eyes, says, "Well, don't get down on the boy for it. We're all glory hounds here, aren't we?" 

She shuts the car off once it's parked, no keys to pull out of the ignition and no hope of starting it up again now that the wires have all been jump-started to hell, but it got them where they'd needed to go, L assumes. It's cold and it's dim in here, dusty like the crevices of his youth, and there's a strange smell of decay and a feeling of emptiness that fills up the air around them. L doesn't know where they are, but he knows it's the right place to be with Beyond Birthday.

It's not a place for Mello or for Wedy, though, and so he opens his door and says what he thinks will make them leave.

"I'm not getting down on anyone. It's his choice to be ashamed, just like it's his fault if he doesn't know well enough not to be." He steps out barefoot onto the cold concrete floor, the other doors all opening in a serenade of cool, clanking metal. Follow the leader, just as always.

Mello steps out into the garage beside him, brow crinkled, hair in his eyes and stiff with sweat, and he opens his mouth once, twice, then stops. Expression going flat, he says, "You know, everybody warned me about you."

Beyond's laughter echoes up to the cavernous ceiling, and the sharp smell of smoke hits the air at the same moment as Wedy lights up a new cigarette to stop her hands twitching. He knows her, he likes her, but he doesn't want her around. The boy before him he doesn't even know, and doesn't have time to. Everything is too much, too fast, swallowing him up. 

"Please go, Mello," he says, one last attempt before his practicality falls apart, the last strands cut, and he stops thinking in the straight grey lines of logic and starts feeling in blurry bright colors. B's laughter fills him up like a warm draught of something.

He knows him, he does not like him, and if he's not careful he will disappear into the 18 year old boy who could not breathe without him there.

_Where is Light?_ something in his whispers, but the answer is easy, the answer is _not here_.

Mello looks him in the eyes, gaze sharp and now almost rebellious, and says very clearly and pointedly, "No." 

And L doesn't have enough energy left to argue with him.

 

\---

  

She's at a booth in her set clothes - sweatpants and a t-shirt and her hair tied back, sunglasses slanting down her nose and a shaky air of fragility which, combined with the disguise, holds off the adoring strangers. Light walks in and he has no idea what he looks like, hadn't bothered to check and doesn't think it matters half as much as the other six million things that are falling apart at the moment.

He sits down across from her in the booth. 

"Coffee?" he says to the waitress, giving her a wan smile and trying not to panic. He doesn't want to have this conversation in public, but even a cab wouldn't afford proper privacy and he cannot manage to let this wait until they're home.

"Light," Misa says softly, smiling gratefully, like she hadn't truly believed he'd come at all. There's none of the usual squealing or lash-fluttering, nothing about her that demands attention, but rather an uncharacteristic stuntedness that makes his name float back down her throat as she says it.

"What happened?" are his first words, but he shakes his head a second later, brushing aside. "No, you don't know what happened, do you? Fine, then where did it happen?" He jabs his fingers quickly against the sticky tabletop. His coffee is taking too long.

Misa's glasses shift as she scrunches her brow at him. "What do you mean? The shoot? It was just - "

"Not the shoot," he grits, his whole body tensing and loosening in uneven muscle spasms. The waitress sets a mug down next to him and Light had thought he'd be able to put this off until he'd gotten the basic information out of her, but evidently Misa's even more useless without her memories than she usually is, so he pulls out his wallet and flicks back through the cards and IDs there and pulls out a tiny square of folded notebook paper, which he immediately reaches across the table to press to the palm of Misa's hand. 

At first she twitches, a confused little smile lighting her up, evidently taking it as a romantic gesture rather than one of necessity. A moment later, when the scrap from the Note makes contact, she freezes, her shoulders setting hard and her mouth falling open. Light remembers this, being confronted with a storm of information that feels familiar, but doesn't fit in anywhere in your view of the world - a harsh kind of deja vu that overpowers the things that call themselves 'real' and sets in as a loose truth. 

And then suddenly _knowing_.

She jerks her hand out of his, elbow slamming against the booth and the air blowing out of her in a sharp little gasp - not delicate or breathy the way she feigns them - just any grunt of pain from any human being. She's still holding the bit of paper.

"Misa," Light says, leaning across to gently lift the glasses from her face, looking at her eyes. Windows to the soul, except sometimes he wonders if she even has one of those, or if she's just a conglomeration of pretty things she finds and calls a part of her. There's nothing pretty there now - just a sharp, self-denying fear. "What happened?" 

Her hands shake, brow furrowing. "I don't - I didn't…." Her eyes snap to his very suddenly and she says quickly, like she needs him to understand, "I didn't give it up."

"The Notebook?" Light asks, voice lowered, as if Aiber's listening in even now, ear to the door and waiting for him to trip up. 

Misa doesn't say yes, doesn't nod her head, but it's not an answer he needs to hear to know. "I didn't," she repeats, stumbling over the words, clenched hands shaking. "She _took_ it." 

"What, who? Rem?" Light asks, trying to tamp down on his incredulity.

That's something he hadn't been expecting, but maybe he should have been? L goes missing just as Misa loses ownership of the Notebook - and thus her memory and most, if not all, of her worth - just as this Shinigami nonsense rears its ugly head. Rem and L have been in cahoots for weeks, maybe they took the distraction of the case as an opportunity to put a plan into action. Or, more likely, they manufactured the catastrophe; maybe not the children dying, but who had given him the information confirming a Shinigami's involvement in this whole mess? Rem, of course.

But, no, so had Ryuk and he doesn't lie because it's of no value to him to manufacture events when there's already so much going on to keep him occupied. And Takada, how could what she'd seen be explained? Does L really have far more reach than he had given him credit for, or -

Abruptly, Misa cuts off his spiraling thought processes with one word: "No."

No. No, not Rem.

"Then who?"

Misa looks down at her hands. "I can't," she says, shaking her head, eyes shiny and if this is a performance for sympathy, her acting skills have really improved. "She took it, she took my death," - if she says _note_ after that, it's drowned out by a choked breath of panic and Light doesn't hear it. "I don't know what to do, Light, what do I do? I want to be useful, I want to be useful, I want to help, and she took it, and I can't - I can't - " 

She's crying and he doesn't know what to.

"Misa," he snaps, "Misa, pull it together, we don't have time for this."

Evidently, reason isn't going to do anything to sway her, and as the volume of her teary breathing rises, people begin glancing their way. Maybe it looks like any couple's spat, but he can't risk the attention being drawn, so as a throaty sob mounts in her, he reaches forward and snatches the scrap of paper out of her hand, breaking whatever hold the trauma of her memories has exerted.

Blinking at him, she looks up, brow creased and lip still trembling. She is still afraid, she just doesn't know what of. 

"Light," she says, softly, pleading with him the way a child might do a parent, "take me home?"

It would be a relief to be able to drop her off, put her away and not have to open the drawer again, but she's insinuated herself so far into him and his paradise that as it crashes down, she inevitably remains an integral figure. "I'm sorry," he says, and it's true, even if it's not as kind as it should be, "I - we need to find out what happened. We need to find Rem, and we need to find out who or what did this to you." 

She looks at him, uncomprehending. "I don't understand."

Light stands, and slipping the piece of the Death Note into his opposite hand, sets some cash on the table and then holds out his palm to her. "You don't need to." 

Cautiously, but with a wavering devotion that not even her memory loss can strip from her fallible bones, she slips her manicured fingered between his, twining around him like some creeping vine. She's not L, not something to love, but - whether she fully understands it or not - at the moment she's just about the only ally he has.

 

\---

  

They climb in the through a window around the back and L feels his muscles quivering with the effort, out of shape from all the wasted hours locked quivering to something or another. And he'd done that why? Because of some romance he'd written in his head to justify his paralyzation. Maybe love doesn't slow things down, maybe tiredness does. Maybe he's so versed in the world, so exhausted by everything he's seen and been and done - and found very little satisfaction in - that Light Yagami hadn't been a stranded beginning so much as a means to an end.

Maybe he really had been waiting to die.

But it doesn't matter now, because the get out of jail free card that had ripped him from his comfortable disintegration is tugging him with un-careful hands through the window after him. "You're taking too long," B snickers, fingers locked around his wrist, and L had gotten off underneath of him not so long ago, but the contact is still a shock to his system, and he bats B off with ease, pulling himself the rest of the way.

Already standing in the large room, cavernous and empty of furniture, Mello frowns flatly at them, arms crossed over his chest, and L doesn't have the particular energy to sort through that whole separate mess at the moment, so he pretends he doesn't notice. Behind him, Wedy is pulling herself up with solid hands, but he can see the strain in her jaw and he wonders what hurts. He doesn't need to wonder why.

"Not you too," he says, glancing over his shoulder, but it's not a question because he already knows. And he'd never taken her for the loyal type, but here she is, neglecting the free pass she could take out of here to follow him about like a very well dressed bodyguard, the way she's always done. 

She lands, dusting off her hands, and shrugs. "I follow the money."

L doesn't blink at her. "Watari has lots of money."

"Yes," she says, glancing slyly over his shoulder at B, "but if I let you two kill each other, I really don't think I'm going to get paid."

Wedy's by the window and Mello's leaning against the opposite wall and B is lounging stringily around the banister of a dusty set of stairs and L feels cornered on all sides by a cast of characters he doesn't recognize. Mello is taller and quieter and far and away distanced from his catastrophic youth. Wedy is less harsh, more a person than a character now, and her lips are chapped and colorless.

B is - B is something he doesn't recognize but knows all the same. Grown up out of his old disguises and into new ones, and if he's a mirror it's a foggy one, and if he's a monster it's a monster with friends.

"You'd be surprised," L says, voice less even than he usually keeps it in company, but then Light had worn away the topmost layer of skin and he hasn't yet had time to grow it back. "As I'm sure you've realized by now," he continues, gesturing to B, and then briefly at Mello, "I am very much replaceable."

Mello barely reacts to that, arms just crossing tighter across his chest, but, quite typically, B breathes out a long sigh, flutters his eyelashes and drops a hand over his heart. "I'm flattered."

"I know you are," L says, barely glancing at him. He can't look, can't look, can't feel a thing and doesn't want to. It's like going from very cold water to very hot all of a sudden, there's too much new sensory information, and his mind runs over it, tries to justify, find nooks and crannies to tuck it all away, but there isn't enough.

His past is on him like a starving dog and the future's none too gentle either. Only the present, withering past him from second to second, is solid enough to grasp onto, but from every moment to the next he has to change hand-holds and it keeps him wobbling.

Without any particular volume to her voice, but still perfectly audibly in the stretching silence of the room, Wedy says, "You seem different," spitting smoke between the words. 

It takes L a longer moment than he is comfortable with to realize that she's talking about him, and another to organize it all in his head. The idea that there was a him that was with her, and one that she feels justified in drawing comparisons to and about. As if she _knows_ him. It's ridiculous, about as permissible as comparing a mask with the face underneath.

Barely turning to face her, he evens out his voice, tries to lock the mask back down, and says, "Yes, well I apologize for not withstanding my captivity more admirably."

Beyond is giggling in the background. It's an obnoxious score to an already dull scene, and L wants out.

Brows rising, Wedy seems unable to resists a retort, probably because she's no longer on his payroll and can't see any reason to demure. "We all figured you knew what you were doing," she snaps, distantly, tapping the end of her cigarette. And the implication is there, and strong: she and Aiber and Watari, all waiting there, expecting him to burst out any second at the forefront of some master plan, a thousand victories at his feet.

And the crowd goes wild.

How disappointed she must be with this tired man in a To-Oh University t-shirt who wants nothing more than a decent shower, a cup of coffee, and several weeks alone to remember what he is. At present, he doesn't have any of that, and he doesn't foresee it making an appearance anytime soon.

"And that's an enduring mistake that everyone makes," he says abruptly, hardly realizing that the words had formed until they're out of his mouth, making waves in the open air. "I never know what I'm doing. I have no idea whatsoever." There's too much in his voice. The mask is coming loose, he can't keep it latched up. All his strings have been cut and he cannot afford more.

The air in the room is bankrupting him. Beyond must be enjoying this. The deterioration.

Wedy is still, maybe shocked, examining him with an interest not wholly professional - because she is not wholly herself, not anymore, not the self she made, and neither is he. Mello is silent and concentrative and L does not look at him because he does not have room inside himself to fit more apologies. _Sorry I'm not the hero you dreamed of. Sorry you saved me, sorry I never would have saved you._  

_Sorry you prefer the stunted copy. Sorry that I understand why_.

"B?" he breathes, turning back to the lounging ghost on the staircase, but not making eye contact.

"Hmm?" B whistles, the sound slicing between his teeth, sharp and topping the list of _forgotten things_. L does not want to remember but it's like a dream from years ago, set off by something, sneaking up and taking over the mind.

L trudges over to the staircase, and he forgets to slump, and then he forgets on purpose. Back set, like a soldier headed for battle. "Are we going to get this big final battle scene over, or what?" he asks.

Swooning like a debutante, B angles himself after L, moving somehow without seeming to exert any effort. "I was thinking more of a heartfelt reunion, actually," he simpers, following L up the first couple of steps.

"I'm sure we can compromise," L replies, and they disappear like that, without a glance back - although he thinks he sees B giving a cutesy little wave to Mello and Wedy over his shoulder. A tough crowd this morning, though, it seems, and they exit stage left without a hint of applause.

 

\--- 

 

Rem's nowhere to be found - shocker there - and he's got Ryuk out scouting for her, but in the meantime the only option he really has is to return to the scene of the, for lack of a better word, crime. He's spent enough time digging through files and reports, clawing through impotent human means in order to try and understand something divine, but it's become undeniably obvious by now that that just isn't going to work.

Still, in his head, the process of exploring the cosmos, getting down to the dirt, the bone and the marrow all choked out, _understanding_ death - well, he'd not expected it to smell so bad.

"What were you even doing in a place like this?" he asks Misa, covering his mouth and nose with one sleeve as he tugs her along with the other hand. This is her dream, he supposes, a quaint stroll through the city with him on her arm. And half the time, considering her varyingly absent memory, she might in fact think that that's all it is.

"I told you," she says, breathless and obviously confused, "I had a shoot. The theme was grunge and there are some really perfect warehouses around here that a lot of photographers rent out. I think the pictures came out really well, too! I can show you when I get a few back." She's batting her eyelashes, latching onto lines she knows, even though the frailty is obvious just beneath the skin.

She knows he doesn't want to see her goddamn photographs. He knows she knows. And yet they never abandon this game, do they?

"Alright," he says, cutting past the flaky skin to the parts that matter, "alright. Then what happened here? What scared you so much?" 

Stopping, Misa frowns, her hand still in his. She reminds him of Sayu sometimes, stumbling and young, without a care. Maybe smart, but selling off all the truth she can see for visions of sugarplums. Sayu is allowed to have her naivete and her pretty lies. Light is saving the world for people like her, so that she can keep the rose-colored glasses on, but Misa had signed up for this. She killed, she fought, she _got what she wanted_.

"I don't know," she says, softly. "I don't remember."

Light sighs and slips the folded scrap of paper out of his pocket, and Misa flinches, like even without remembering she understands.

She says, "I don't want to remember."

If the world was fair and kind then maybe she wouldn't have to, but her parents are dead and he's all she's got left. If she wants to keep him, she has to keep the blood, too. He presses the Notebook paper against the skin of her wrist.

He says, "Misa, tell me what happened."

 

\---

 

Wedy's smoke paints patterns in the light that spills through the shuttered windows. Mello sits cross-legged against the adjacent wall. He's tired and he's hungry and he's bored and the tiny part of him that wants to pull one of the books off a shelf and occupy himself wars with the other, larger part that insists that things hadn't turned out so well the last time he'd fallen asleep reading. He doesn't trust himself to stay conscious, and isn't sure he trusts Wedy not to leave him to the wolves.

"What do you think they're doing up there?" he asks, without really thinking about it. That's the thing you say in situations like this, isn't it?

She looks sideways at him, eyebrows rising, and he gets an impression like he's disappointed her but he's too exhausted - and busy nursing his own disillusionment - to particularly care.

Taking another drag, she says, "Oh, playing checkers, I'd assume," with a distant leer, then letting it fade out into the pristine old Hollywood sadness that she's got following her around, sharp with the smell of nicotine.

"Yeah," Mello says, and doesn't even bother to block the mental paths from leading to their inevitable ends - what do any two people do alone in a bedroom? - "I guess so."

 

\---

 

L's still got half of a chain around his left wrist and it hangs at his side as they walk into what he assumes is the master bedroom. There is no furniture but a large mattress on the floor, bathed in cold winter sunlight and sitting like a bright white stage in the middle of the room. At least his great escape didn't take him too far outside of his usual routine; bare rooms and beds and boys who don't take their eyes off of him. It's all so similar it might bleed together.

B flops down on the mattress like he'd done when they'd been teenagers, hair fanning out behind him in a mess, flashing the over-the-top bedroom eyes, and L supposes this the part where the Metallica album should start playing. It doesn't.

"So, what'd you do after?" L asks, taking the suggestion that they're meant to be catching up at face value, words utterly devoid of anything but the haunting lack that he's filling himself up with currently. "London, then, like you said? Did you make it on the West End?"

They used to talk about the future like a dream. Then B left and L woke up from that dream and it may as well not have happened at all.

B sits up on his elbows, squinting at him curiously - exaggeratedly - as if those aren't questions he'd been expecting. "Why do you wanna talk about the past," he says, "when the present is just so _ripe_?" He gaze skates along L's clavicle, the bruises peeking just over the edge of his shirt, and L's not sure what it says about him that he doesn't know if it had been Light or B who had made them. 

Rolling his eyes as L looks down at himself, B evidently grows bored of his own subject, because he quickly tips the conversation elsewhere, planting his hands on his knees and leaning forward to say, "You could have asked me about that stuff anytime after the LA trial. You could have visited."

The words are playing hurt but his voice is dancing with the satisfaction of rejection. B always was just as much of as masochist as a sadist.

"I could have," L agrees. "I didn't. I'm here now." He hasn't moved form his straight-backed stance in front of the closed door. He tilts his head to the side, a deprecating grin clawing itself up without him truly meaning it to. "And all it took was you kidnapping me."

"Uh," B says, pulling himself up, expression wide and comical, " _un-_ kidnapping, you mean. You were already kidnapped, I just 'napped you back." He strolls over to L, lining up their bodies exactly, mirroring L's uncharacteristic posture, becoming the reflection he so craves to be. "I think this is what you call a 'double negative.'"

He smiles and L's brain latches onto the symmetry and he has to pointedly resist copying the expression. It can be so easy to exist as half of a whole, but it's wrong wrong wrong, and if you let it in it chases away all the things that make you _you_ , and then -

And then things like this happen. And then Beyond Birthday is standing in front of him in the abandoned bedroom of an abandoned house and L can see the light reflecting off his eyes and the laughter lines formed around his mouth and - curiously, no burn scars. Hadn't there been scars? He hadn't studied the photos too closely - still almost raw, back then, and everything was still almost forgivable - but given the amount of damage B had sustained through his attempt at self-immolation, there should be extensive tissue scaring.

If it's there, he can't see it. He looks at B and what he sees is -

He can't look.

Eyes flitting away, his back drops into a clumsy arch and he slumps past B and over to the window, staring at the brown dirt out front that had maybe once been a yard. He says, without looking back, "What are you doing here, B? What's the plan? Swoop in, play the hero? Rescue me from my terrible fate and then what? We ride off into the sunset together?" And of course he knows the answer, he always knows the answer. 

_You are the sun I orbit around_.

"Maybe," B says, voice going starker, less frilly. L doesn't know if that's bad or good or if its possible for B to be either of those things. "And maybe there was a guy on my cellblock who used to give me extra pudding at lunchtime who got axed by Kira a little while ago."

He surely says it the way he does - in his truthful voice - so that L will know that it's a lie. 

"Uh-huh," L breathes, turning back to lean against the window ledge and face him, "and this friend of yours, what was he in for?" 

B meets his eyes squarely, smile squirming back on. "Maybe I didn't ask."

"Maybe," L concedes, "but I doubt it."

The thing is, for all his strangling disassociation, he knows Beyond Birthday. Knows that people form strange attachments to him, drawn in by the cloying, quiet dark, and his surety, and his baldfaced acceptance of the evils of mankind. Everybody's got ugly secrets and B is the priest, hulking in the shadows of the confessional, either absolving your sins or taking them for his own. That's why Grady had liked him just as much as he'd been afraid of him, and why A had danced with him on late nights to bad punk songs he didn't know the words to, then avoided eye contact in the morning. 

Beyond Birthday is everybody's shameful secret, a thing you like not because it's good or kind but because it is there, offering itself to you. Only the very desperate ever take the offer, and funny how those that do always either end up dead or wishing they were. Some kind of miracle, isn't he?

If B had made a friend in the prison - not unbelievable, given his track record - and that friend had died of a heart attack - also permissible, given Light's - then L is still a shiny, neat one hundred percent sure that that's not why he's here.

He'd shrugged when they'd found A hanging from the rafters, said he _"looked funny all pale like that,"_ and L knows exactly what he's doing here now.

"Oh, of course, I almost forgot," B says, head bowed slightly, a condescending little laugh peeling out. "I'm not allowed to be in love with you, but I'm not allowed to be anything else, either." 

L's pavlovian reaction to the words - a self-denying fear mingled with a quaint resignation - is torn in half by his eye-roll, and he dismisses it all far more easily than has been doing with Light. Experience, he supposes, is worth something.

"Don't use that word," he says, a flat instruction.

B laughs, stringy and deploring, moving in swaying paces across the floor like trying to puzzle something out. "I'm sorry, do you have it copyrighted? Did you and the boy wonder take out a monopoly on tortured romance?" There's bite in the words, but it's masked by the laughing, dancing show that B always puts on. L wishes he'd cut it out. 

On instinct he wants to shoot back some quip about patent documents, go along with the welcoming, empty buzz of trading feather-weight blows, like they did when they were kids, insults changing with every new word added to their vocabularies, and mounting into long sparring games of hours spent talking each other in circles simply for the fun, or else distraction, of it. But his old habits have died hard and he's in no mood to resurrect something so long buried. 

B shouldn't be here. There is no place for him here.

So L says, very seriously, so grim that he thinks he'd probably laugh at himself if he could see it from the outside, "You don't know anything about him. Or me, for that matter. Not anymore." It's up for debate if he ever did at all, or if they just traded shells with each other, admiring the handiwork of their respective masks.

L wants to say the latter. It feels much safer and cleaner, easier to close his eyes against. 

He blinks for half a second and then B is across the room, right in front of him, nose sharp and eyes grinning, breathing L's air like it's his own. Close. Closer than he'd gotten since the floor, and the blood, and writhing touch of - no, no - L is not going to the think about this. His continued survival is dependent on him _not thinking about this_.

The cut on B's cheek is clean, like a scar, not scabbing over the way it ought to be, and L is grateful for the distraction that studying it brings him.

"Be honest," B breathes in his face, and L feels his muscles springing down, preparing for violence, "what is it that did it? Is it because he's prettier than me, or because he's not as smart?" His eyebrows jump. 

L's breath lets out. This is a subject that's safe, on he can touch. He matches B's sharp smile, says, "You'd be surprised."

"What?" B laughs, swinging around to lean against the window beside L, wholly more casual than the air in the room is insisting they be. "He can keep up with you so he's a prodigy?" He shoots L a sideways glance, and he can feel the edges of his fingers brushing the dangling edge of the chain.

"That," L says, pulling the cuff out of B's reach, like dangling a toy in front of a cat, "and he looks like hell some mornings. And _yet_." 

The words he doesn't speak are heavy and pounding. _Love_ like a theme song, a shield to hold up between him and his creeping past. _I am in love with a man who is not you_.  

Characteristically, however, Beyond doesn't seem at all dissuaded by the idea of competition. Rather, he turns, leaning far too closely to L, arm linking casually through his, hanging on him like some groupie. L supposes that's what he is and has always been - his number one fan.

The feel of B's nails digging into his skin should not be as shocking as it is. He says, "All this time, L, and you still only kiss the mirror when it doesn't look back at you."

L blinks at him. "I don't know what that means and I'm not going to try to figure it out." He doesn't attempt to detach B from his person. He knows a lost cause when he meets it, shakes its hand, and get its sweat all over him.

"It says a lot," B tells him, utterly ignoring his response, leaning his forehead against L's temple, some platonic touch that reels with something far less platonic, "that the murderer of the century is your cleanest option." His breath is warm and he smells like ginger ale and hair product. "But I guess he keeps it tidy, huh? The blood on his hands doesn't get smeared all over you. Not like mine." 

L stays perfectly stock still, waiting for the touch to fade, the ghost dissolving back into his laughing mysteries, but he doesn't go. He's not sure what B uses to cut his hand, but he holds it up, showing L the thin slit down the center of his palm, leaking bright blood that glints sharply in the morning light. L has enough time to see it, study it, _understand_ the action - even if he purposefully ignores the intention - before it's being smeared across his cheek.

Lovely. 

It's smells like it always does, fresh from crime scenes, or a scratch here and there. It's roiling inside all of them, always, so it shouldn't be such a shock to the touch but it makes the warring hypochondria in him - by now beaten down by a slovenly nihilism - rise up ever so slightly.

This can't be sanitary. 

B rubs his blood along L's jaw, over his cheekbone, up to the temples, and L simply flinches, huffs, and says, "Beyond, I know you're trying to be symbolic or something but this is mostly just gross." 

"Good," B says, patting the other cheek, openhanded and fierce in how he paints L in wet stripes, the artist at work, the madman he's always been and the child he still is. The sharp, tangy smell of flesh makes L's stomach roll, reminds him of tussling in the sprawling fields, laughing and tearing and hating all the way down. What a way to live and what a way to die. 

Beyond Birthday should be dead. He'd tried to kill himself, and L has had ample opportunity throughout his life, shovels and bricks and spur of the moment weapons that he could have tilted a little more sharply, hit with a little harder, aimed deeper. They'd torn each other open and yet they're still standing and it seems wrong, a fluke in human history. If he'd killed B before, sometime during is imprisonment, then he wouldn't be here now. No one would have come to save him from his self-imposed imprisonment. He'd still be with Light.

For some reason that he doesn't understand, but which maybe has to do with the vile joy in B's eyes, that thought scares him.

Not that he particularly wants to be with Beyond, but he's _free_. Let out of the cage he'd locked himself in - with love and long nights and pretty words about justice, and destruction, and _saving the world_. Not even his words. His words were, _"Sometimes I want to pretend the only thing that's ever happened to me is you."_

Sometimes. But sometimes he doesn't even want that. Sometimes he wants to pretend the only thing that's ever happened to him is _nothing_. If there is freedom in the world, that's as close as he can get to it.

"So," B says, dropping his hand and wiping it on his own jeans - flippant as always with his wound, like he barely notices it's there - and tilting his forehead against L's, "you love him, then?" His voice is equal parts mocking and curious, as if he really does want to know and already knows at the same time. Knows and doesn't care. 

"Yes," L says, stolidly, and he's not fibbing. Free or caged or devoured or alone, Light Yagami is a thing he has loved. He has spaces in him with that name carved out. He is self aware enough to know when he's caught and by whom, but - at least at this particular moment - he has no interest in romanticizing it any further.

Their noses brush. It tickles, starkly innocent for the blood and the bones and getting off pressed to a floor that slinks wholly throughout their whole relationship. And yes, this is familiar. If he has a home, it feels like this.

It's no great wonder that he'd left home as soon as he could possibly manage.

"But you could live without him, couldn't you?" B asks, silkily but in a louder voice than such a secret question with such a secret answer demands.

"We're not having this conversation," L says, pressing his forehead even more sharply into B's, as if he can shove him off that way or something. As if he's ever been able to.

He expects B to kiss him, like in the movies that play in his head like cheap porn that you get off to and then forget, but he doesn't. Pulling back, letting go, he spins on the heel of his tennis shoe - the same brand that L used to wear when he was 18 and weedy and tired of existing - and spreads his arms out as if for balance, like he's walking a tight-rope. 

"That's the difference between you and me, L," he says, without giving L time to point out that that's hardly the only one. "I couldn't, wouldn't, and didn't." _Live without you_. He doesn't say the words explicitly but they're there and they eat at L's skin.

He looks like he'd survived just fine, though, and L means to say as much, but then B is turning sharply with a laugh, balance shot, voice changing like a radio station. "No, no, I'm just a stalker, right?" He grins, takes in L's expression and nods, but there's something piercing underneath. "A lovesick fool in love with everybody's love." He says the words like a melody. "I don't know you. I'm lying to you, to myself, just to get some _ass_." 

He marches over to L, close again, breathes in his face, and L says, "Don't," but doesn't actually mean it.

B ignores him. "I'm every frat boy with every vial of Rohypnol and when I touch you it's rape and when I love you it's obsession and when I look at the deepest, darkest, ugliest parts of you and don't flinch, don't look away, it's just plain stupidity, isn't it? I'm just a stupid little creep with my hands all over the holy grail and - " 

L grabs him by the face and kisses him because it seems like the only thing to do at this point. This is the music swelling, Hollywood moment, where the hero grabs the heroine and the fireworks go off in the background and nobody dies and nobody hurts or hates or destroys, nothing's clawing, nothing's making the hero feel sick and thrumming and empty.

Nobody's grabbing the hero's ass and pressing him against the window ledge.

This can only end in disaster, but he and disaster grew up together, climbing apple trees and exploring the horrors of existence one rabid touch at a time. And, well, at this point, L's got nothing better to do than relive his teenage years again.

 

\---

 

**two hours later.**

 

\---

 

It's mid-morning when he comes downstairs. He's not wearing the To-Oh University shirt anymore, and he only notices because Wedy raises an eyebrow at him, looking down at the blank white space of B's t-shirt. The fit is awkward on him but the fit is always awkward on him. His legs feel strange.

"You don't happen to have a cellphone, do you?" he asks Wedy, standing at the foot of the stairs, and lowly so as not to wake Mello, who's curled up in some moth-eaten blankets against the wall, head pillowed on a balled up leather jacket and breathing soundly.

Wedy shakes her head. "Confiscated."

L had known that, knows B's ways, but he couldn't think of anything else to say. He nods, then continues on to the back window, hand on the ledge and making to climb his way over and out. It probably looks like a tired escape, but B is spread out on the mattress upstairs, counting constellations in the ceiling plaster and waiting for the ball to drop, the big shebang. End of the world, and all that.

End of the current world and onto the next one. It's not salvation but it's better than rotting. L has been rotting.

"What are you going to do?" Wedy asks him, arms crossed, making no move to stop him. She's become a spectator in this war until such time as one of the sides calls on her. 

L lifts one leg over the window ledge. "What I have to."

A bicycle bell sounds from the street, skating past on the easy wind, and it's warmer today than it has been. He's not wearing shoes and the roads here aren't clean but it doesn't much matter. 

Wedy huffs, unimpressed but not unkind, and says, "How dramatic," in a tired voice. He doesn't think she's slept.

He smiles at her in a way he doesn't expect himself to, comfort from the comfortless, but his world has become suddenly very bright and clear and the answers are, for once, laid out in front of him instead of hidden away at the end of a long and winding path.

"I'll bring back coffee," he tells her, and lands his feet firmly on the ground.

A garbage truck and two old women in hats and scarves are all he passes on the way to the corner store, and even though he's barefoot and wrecked, the area is suitably poor and underpopulated for the cashier not to complain. L asks if he can use the phone with stunted speech, and maybe he lets him only because L looks like he's recently been the victim of some attack. He'd washed the blood off of his face but it's not enough to get rid of the stench of violence.

The number is easy, memorized. He memorizes all official government phone numbers and addresses every time he travels to a new city. "Hello, may I speak to the chief of police? I am an agent of L and I have urgent information regarding the Kira case. No, I would not like to be redirected to the Kira Taskforce headquarters. I believe that operation to be compromised. Yes, I have clearance codes."

He cycles through the numbers as easily as reciting the alphabet, and after he's been traded between lackeys, he's put through to the chief, who is equal parts nervous and smug, having landed a break this large and utterly simple.

"There are a couple of people I'd like you to take into custody," L tells him, smiling thinly when the cashier taps his watch, telling him to hurry it up, "starting with Light Yagami."

 

\---

 

**tbc.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you may be asking yourself at this point "is what i think is happening really happening?" the answer is probably yes. actually i don't know. what do you think? i'm barely sure what's happening most of the time if i'm honest, but i can tell you here and now we're going to get a dramatic locale and dynamic change pretty soon, and an introduction (and reintroduction) of some newly important characters. oh what fun! *toots party horn*
> 
> okay, but seriously, thank you all for reading and reviewing, sorry for being atrociously late. i love you guys! all comments are appreciated mega super a lot! see you guys next time (which will hopefully come a bit faster)!


	25. unquiet ghosts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry, i'm late again! this california thing, while doing wonders for my life in general, has cut my writing time down quite a bit so update times may be longer for the next couple of months, until the summer when i'm going home again. (i'm moving semi-permanently back to ca in august tho and getting a job so who knows what will become of this fic then. all i can promise is that it will most certainly be finished if i have to sell my soul several times over to make it happen.)
> 
> i'm sure the timeline in this chapter is very confusing, as the last scene of the previous chapter slots in somewhere, in classic time-skip fashion, into the middle of this chapter. hopefully it's not completely impossible to puzzle out. the LxB is strong in this chapter, so i'm sorry if that ship doesn't float your boat. please don't think that i've abandoned lxlight in any way, shape, or form, though. it's all leading somewhere and i promise that place is full of our two favorite dorky genius boyfriends.
> 
> thank you for reading as always, i sincerely hope at least some of you enjoy this chapter!
> 
>  
> 
> because last chapter was so long ago, i wrote a dorky little catch-up paragraph in soap opera style to jog your memories below, so! 
> 
>  
> 
> **previously on nights!:**
> 
>  
> 
> A supposed Shinigami who is terrorizing the city of Tokyo, leaving a trail of dead children in it's wake, made itself known to Kiyomi Takada, a fragile dame, who in turn made herself known to our hero, Light Yagami, when he questioned her in his search for answers! Elsewhere, three travelers left a man named Sydney Grauss holding the severed limb of his departed beloved, and made their expedition to the east, where they shortly discovered the location of the subject of their search, the world famous detective L! Escaping to an abandoned house with this detective, tensions ran low and high as the quartet attempted to determine their next move, and ultimately came to a startling decision regarding the fate of our hero, who at the present moment finds himself distracted by the mystery of what has become of his sometime love interest, pop modeling sensation Misa Amane, and her Death Note!

_"All people are insane. They will do anything at any time, and God help anybody who looks for reasons."_

\- Kurt Vonnegut, _Mother Night_

 

\---

  

Misa sways against him, batting her eyes at the sky. "I was somewhere I've never been before. She brought me there."

"She? _Who?_ " Light demands, his grip firm on her shoulders, trying to shake her into facing him, but she lolls like a doll, limbs stiff and posable. "Misa, look at me."

She shakes her head, drawing her hands out of his and pressing them to her face, covering her eyes with the flats of her palms as if to block out more than just vision. "She was a god I didn't know. I still don't know. I wanted to be good for you, but I couldn't stop her. I couldn't hold onto it and now you don't need me anymore, and I don't, I don't… " Her breath is heavy, sodden, words coming fast and tripping over each other, one after the next.

"A god?" Light repeats, stepping back. He looks upward, the sky over Tokyo lit blue and cloudless. He can't spot anything that could be a Shinigami, not Rem's pale musculature nor the wide-brimmed shade of Ryuk's wingspan. He'd followed Light to the diner, but disappeared shortly afterward, fading off into the muddled rush from there to here. "How?" he asks.

"What?" Misa says, uncovering her eyes to peek out at him. They're glassy, but she's not crying, and she looks suddenly unaware of her own predicament, preoccupied now with his.

She takes a few steps forward.

"How?" he repeats, louder this time, nearly yelling into the murk of the alley. His frustration is ebbing in waves, low to high, and then down again. "The children, the _bodily fluids_. How could a Shinigami do that? How could it take your Note?" He ruffles an angry hand through his hair. "How could Takada see it?"

"Who?" Misa asks, voice small, but he doesn't hear her.

"Oh," he says, out loud but to himself. "Oh, oh. I have an idea." He turns back to Misa, posture going straight, shoulders set, suddenly calm and ready for decisive action. "We have to go." 

He reaches out for her hand, feels the small scrap of paper pressing into his palm, her fingers quivering where they interlock with his. "Where?" she gasps, letting herself be pulled along, tiny legs dancing after his like an off-balance ballerina. "Light, please tell me what's going on?" she asks when they finally stop for longer than a breath, taking the escalator down to the train station behind a hundred slow-moving commuters, all in similar shades of blues, blacks, and greys, a relative ocean of mundanity.

"Light?" Misa repeats, voice growing shriller, the tears waging their threat again.

"We're going to see a friend," he says, then abruptly lets go of her hand, pulling the scrap of the Death Note into his own, and not planning to give it back until such time as it becomes necessary.

She stumbles slightly, displaced for a moment, but she picks herself up admirably, smile wide, misty-eyes crinkling. He prefers it this way. The less she knows, the less of her he has to manage.

  

\---

 

There's something they say about old habits and dying hard. B has always wondered what the distinction is, what _dying softly_ would be like. He's been knocked off a good few times, but he's never gone like that. He's not even sure there is such a thing.

So maybe what they're trying to say is just: old habits die.

And here they are, killing them. 

"You haven't gotten any better at this," L grits when B shoves in, biting his shoulder with a jolting vengeance. Fucking L has always been like this, like storming a castle only to find it unlocked, welcoming, all the traps and attacks mounted inside, trembling and chaste and ready to destroy.

B has very much missed being destroyed. 

He pulls at L's scalp, claws his back, hikes his hips, does everything at once because he hasn't for so long and the sex they're having now is less a procession of events and more a convergence of them, like the universe turned back on itself. Time is self-repeating, maybe, and death is a big joke and life is the punchline, or maybe it's the other way around - he's got all these celebratory declarations in him, each more pretty and ruining than the last, but they merge into the present in a heady sludge and if there's more to existence than rib bones and rolling eyes and L's stunted breaths, he doesn't want it anymore.

"I think," B murmurs softly in his ear, romantic like the end of time, "you've actually gotten worse." 

It's then that L starts laughing, falls back against the mattress and just full out _laughs_ in a way that B has never heard before, and doesn't understand or know what to do with, so he just stares, slightly in awe. And yes, this is what he'd traveled here for. This is why he never dies, no matter what. Here is the thing with feathers, and it's a lot better in bed than _hope_.

Although, at this rate, L is laughing so hard that B can't even properly penetrate him anymore. "Would you stay still?" he snaps, but he's grinning and he doesn't want to stop. Here is euphoria. Hello. He's found it and he's not letting it go.

"This is so stupid," L says to the ceiling and B's cock actually slips out of him and then they're just two sweaty men in half their clothes lying on a bed in an abandoned house and if this is euphoria then L's right, it sure is _stupid_. 

"What is?" B croons, lying down next to him, cock lining up with his hipbone and thrusting, but casually, only a minor exercise compared to the exertions of being in and around one another.

L says," Me," and smiles in a way that B doesn't understand, but will. He's different, not preserved the way B has forced himself to stay, changed by the world as he's met it, shaped into a new, sharper, more deplorable thing, but still a thing that B loves. He's carved out his heart for this thing. He's mounted it on the wall. He's got poetry and his hands are all shaky and if this is not love then he will twist and mend reality until the word takes on a new definition.

"I could have told you that," B says against the shell of his ear, hips moving, pressure burning but not half as much as he wants it to.

Then suddenly the smile disappears and L is standing up, shoving him aside, naked in the bright room and looking around like he's lost something and needs it back. 

"Uh, hey," B grunts, rolling over, body following as if connected by a string, "I was kind of in the middle of something there, I don't know if you noticed."

L doesn't look at him. "You're not real," he says, but casually.

B sits up and his cock is still hard and his organs feel shaky, grown all in new shapes, and he wonders if L would turn to look if he carved open his chest and showed him what was underneath. Probably not.

He grins like the devil because he doesn't know how to do anything else. "Maybe not, but in case you're not keeping count, darling, I'm all you've got. I'm the old wive's tale come to take you away, and the world we're in now isn't made of the steel of your buildings. Nobody's gonna save you because there's nothing to be saved from. There's nothing but what you insist upon."

L shoots a disparaging look over his shoulder, and his eyes are far away and if B could tear out his bones and rearrange them, he would. "I never asked for you at all," he says. "I asked them to take you back."

"I would have crawled across the world for you," B insists, sitting up. He feels his voice getting younger and he doesn't know why but he doesn't question it. "I did. Here I am. Are you going to let me fuck you, or what?"

L turns back to him fully, walks over and comes to sit on the bed beside him. He's gone robotic again and B doesn't like it. Maybe that's why he'd kissed him, let him in - trying to stop the noise long enough to get the mask back on, and then he's not a person anymore, just an idea. From the way he's looking now, it's a very very bad idea.

"What will you do if I say no?" he asks, and god, he just loves that question. Always has. Loves teasing and restraint, loves watching B corrode with want and tired adoration, loves beating him to death with his own heart.

B shrugs, looks at the ceiling, says, "Let you fuck me, I guess."

L looks a little taken aback. They've never done it like that before. There was always the pursuer and the pursued, the denier and the denied. Their relationship is founded on that allocation of power, and B maybe rocks it just to prove that they are _anything_ , can be anything, live in the grass, in the sky, in the park benches, in the grocery stores and the graveyards and every neat house on every neat street. If the world dies they'll both outlast it, and that's a truth B knows because he made it up.

Sometimes he thinks he made up everything. L is the only thing that's ever proven itself real.

"Would you?" he says.

B crawls on top of him, body writhing over his cock like he's being paid to do it, and he could have. Might have made a lot of money as a hooker if he had the time, but he'd burned himself down instead and then locked himself away, waiting for the prince to come climb his tower. The prince is lazy, though, and afraid, and when B penetrates himself on L's cock without any added lubrication, his breath catches in his throat and he grits, "Oh wow, this was a terrible idea," and then grins the whole way down.

 

\---

 

Light bangs on Kiyomi Takada's door with a closed fist, his other hand grasping Misa's, and it's probably not the best idea to introduce one girlfriend to another at a time like this, or ever, but he's really long past caring about appearances at this point. He's got so many things on his plate they're spilling over the sides. He remembers being seventeen and not caring about anything.

Where, oh where, have the good times gone?

Misa's pouting beside him, eyes tired, and he would let her rest if he could. He would drop her off and forget her if she hadn't made herself indispensable. She always does that, somehow. 

The door opens and it is not Kiyomi Takada staring back at him.

"I," Light's already begun, but he stops himself when Mikami raises an eyebrow at him. He swallows. "Teru."

Mikami looks between them, Misa and Light with their hands clasped - only so he could keep the piece of the Note pressed to her skin, but in retrospect maybe he should have just let her hold onto the damned thing - and breathes a soft puff of disparaging air.

"Yagami," he says, flatly, but his brow is creased and it's obvious that he's equally as surprised to see Light as Light is to see him. "Amane. Can I help you?" 

He doesn't remark at the fact that they're obviously together again, despite having broken up in an extremely public spectacle not a week earlier, and Light appreciates the courtesy because he's got no room on his tongue to spin explanations.

"Is Kiyomi here?" he asks, letting go of Misa's hand, but shooting her a sharp sideways glance that he hopes like hell she understands. It's asking a lot to request that she not completely botch everything, but she owes him as much for having gone and lost the Notebook.

"Takada-san is asleep," Mikami tells him, blocking the door like a bodyguard, and since when do the two of them hang around together, outside of police headquarters?

Mikami's fully dressed in a suit and tie, but his clothes look rumpled, hair falling in mussed lines. He'd probably slept here. They're probably fucking. Wouldn't that just be like the world, to throw all of Light's pawns together in some romantic polyhedron and call it chance, just a quaint happenstance. Not like the universe circles him in a whirlpool, mocking him the whole way down. Not like the stars have all aligned themselves to _fuck him over_. If there is a God up there - capital G - it evidently doesn't like him very much. Probably can't stand the competition. 

Shoving down all the spiraling panic, he breathes in, makes his eyes shiny and deplorable, and says, "I need to speak to her. It's urgent. I really hate to intrude, especially after she's had such a testing time of it, but it's a matter of life and death."

At his side, Misa is nodding vehemently, golden hair bobbing comically in the hall light.

Mikami blinks at them skeptically. "Whose death?"

And he's smart, and Light had liked that about him, but he's not asking the right questions. L would. Light would like to strangle L with his own hands, or gently stroke his forehead, or do both at once - but - but L would do it right.

"I don't know if you remember," Light says, his impatience leaking out before he can plug the holes, "all the _murdered children_. What is it, eleven now? Although, I guess they haven't found the bodies of the last two, but no one has high hopes for their survival. I _need_ to speak to Kiyomi."

"She's _not amenable_ ," Mikami shoots back, gaze thin, obviously not at all endeared to Light by the sarcasm. 

"Well, Light," Misa sighs, shrugging her shoulders unbearably high, "you heard him. She's not 'amenable.' Let's just go and tell the police about the monster I saw." She's turning to go already and he's watching her with wide, frantic eyes, and making sure that Mikami watches him watch. 

She's a terrible actress but she's not half bad at lying.

"Misa," he snaps at her back, as if chiding her for her brashness.

He's not sure if he'd imagined the gasp that had echoed through the other side of the wall, but he's very certain that his senses aren't deceiving him when Takada's thin wrist appears in the doorway, a manicured nail crooking them toward her.

"Let them in, Teru," a tired voice says, and then her figure sways into the hazy glare that shines through the curtains as she disappears further into the room.

Mikami must like taking her orders as much as he'd liked taking Light's, because after a drawn out moment and a thin breath, he moves aside, holding the door open for the two of them.

 

\---

 

"Where the hell did you find a _ranch?"_ L breathes loosely, head back on the area of the bed where there would be pillows if this were a proper room in a proper house in a proper world. As if he hadn't just properly fucked Beyond Birthday.

B gives him a withering look, hand slung down somewhere between them and digging through the dirty parts between his legs, investigatory and utterly unashamed. "Texas," he says, drawing out the _S_ like a nursery rhyme. 

L has principles somewhere that insist that he shouldn't grin, but he does, anyway. "And why, exactly, did you want to become a cowboy?"

"The modern term," B corrects ostentatiously, pressing one long, sticky finger to L's lips, "is _ranch-hand_." He seems to become distracted with L's lips, drawing the pads of his fingers along them, following the shape of his jaw and it's like old times, dusty and close, hiding in the backs of closets and under beds, exploring the deep dark quivering parts of one another. "There was an old western playing on the flight over," he murmurs. "It looked comforting, like an easier world to live in."

L tries for a moment to imagine B in the full get-up, boot straps and a wide-brimmed hat, wheatgrass sticking out of his mouth. It's no more or less comical than anything B has ever been.

L does not know what to do about him. L does not know what to do about anything, so he snakes his hands in B's hair and kisses him like you'd kiss a boy at a carnival, who'd bought you cotton candy or won you a stuffed bear in a rigged game. They kiss like they're on the precipice, like things are imploding.

"Was it?" L asks him, pulling away. It feels like they're on a day-time drama and this is the touching love scene. It's sort of a relief when B pinches him on the ass. 

The touch is sharp, but enjoyable, like everything with B, and L knows that he owns him. That wherever he goes and whatever he does and whoever he's screwing for information for whichever case, Beyond is a thing in his back pocket, a thing he can't let alone. He tried to purge him out of his system, but he just keeps coming back, incurable. Fighting it is fun, sometimes, fighting makes him alive, but then other times _sleep_ is the answer. 

Perchance to dream. Perchance to wake in a world that doesn't scar. What a load of idiocy. What a sap he's become in his old age. Twenty five. It's a nice, solid, even number. A nice number to die on. Poetic, even.

"Hey," B snaps, and L realizes that he'd answered his question, but he hadn't heard it at all. There's a rushing in his ears and it might be laughter and it might just be hunger pangs. B shakes his face. "Don't think of that. You were never a defeatist, you were never defeated. You're sugar and slime and puppy dog tails. You're all mixed up and if I could peel you apart it'd be fun for a moment but then you'd just be in pieces. I saw you in the factory smoke. I saw you in all the cities. I know you don't want to exist because I don't want to either, but we do, so get over it."

He turns L's face to him, touching him like a loved one, and that's a strange thought but that's what he is, isn't he? _Loved_. So, then where does Light Yagami fit into all of this?

"Can you read minds?" L asks distantly, honestly curious for a moment. 

"Yes," B replies immediately, sinking down against him, the jester again as if he had never been anything else, "and I know what you're thinking. _How is he so handsome?_ you're asking yourself. Well!" He tosses his hands up like he's got more to say, but L knows he doesn't. They've both got masks. He'd found B at age nine in the hallway bathroom with a stolen scalpel, trying to reshape his face.

L had taken it away and kicked him in the shin.

B had bitten him on the shoulder and the wound had gotten infected. They were forbidden to go near one another for two weeks, and B had climbed in through his balcony window every night and showed him how his scars were healing. L hadn't ever told anyone about the scalpel. Hadn't cared enough. Had cared too much. Something like that.

"Did you really want me to kill you?" he asks, changing the subject again. He doesn't specify a time or a place but he doesn't think the request had ever come up before in all of their history. _Run away with me_ or _take over the world with me_ or _care about me just please care_ \- but never _kill_. Or maybe he's just forgotten it. L has forced a lot of the old out of him to make room for the new.

"Did you really want to kill me?" B shoots back, eyebrows raised, head crooked like a show-pony.

Always a question for a question and never an ending, never an understanding. 

L falls backwards, looking up at the ceiling. "Somebody's going to have to die," he says. "This'll never work out, otherwise. It would be easiest if it were you."

"And I don't suppose you'd miss me?" B asks, fingers circling on L's thighs, because he knows the answer and he's smug about it.

Maybe the thing he so adores about L and always has is how indispensable he can make himself to him. Maybe he's only in love with the thing that needs him, rather than the other way around. L would like to go without, and has. L would like to go back to his stunted, plate-glass existence, all his clean rooms and quiet mornings, barely anything slipping between the cracks. The mask tightly fitted.

Where, oh where, have the good times gone?

L doesn't answer B, just presses his hips up into his hands and says, "I am paralyzed with inaction. I am so much less capable than I am supposed to be." He's smiling but it hurts and he's not sure he's ever been this weak. B's hand is circling his cock, tugging it to life even though it's only been an hour and L likes it because it swallows him up, makes thinking hazy and easier to bear. "I don't know what to do." 

B grins against his pelvic bone, cupping his balls in one hand, dirty and calm and far kinder than L would like him to be, and says, "Well, if you want my advice - "

L's hips buck. "I don't."

" - in situations like these, I always find it's best to ask oneself: what would L Lawliet do? And then do the opposite." He kisses L's hip bone, jerking him with the other hand. "Loudly, and in public." He kisses the other hipbone.

A few minutes later, L comes in his mouth, body quivering, back arched - and he gets an idea.

 

\---

 

It's too early for anyone but the chief to be in, and Aiber doesn't want to make pleasantries, so he just stops a yard from his desk and asks, "You heard from your son recently?"

Soichiro Yagami is a firm man, solidly built if not overlarge, but with lines of wear all down his face, dripping into the corners of his eyes, around his cheeks. He's not well shaven today. If he'd slept last night it hadn't been much. He blinks at Aiber like he's shocked at being addressed. 

"No, I," he says softly, then clears his throat, hardening up, "I don't know if I should be telling you anything, honestly. For whatever reason, you seem to have a grudge against Light." He's still sat in his chair, back straight, facing Aiber across the gloomy fluorescents of the office.

"Come on, sir," Aiber says, because all trappings aside, he's owed some measure of respect, "I think we both know the reason." He lifts an eyebrow and the implication hangs heavy. Some respect, but not too much.

Soichiro turns back to face his desk, sipping from his coffee mug slowly, measured in the way that aging men tend to do everything. "L is dead," he states, voice low and dull, but in the empty room it gets everywhere. "It's not a pleasant truth, but it's become an obvious one. Whatever relationship he had with my son, with you - whatever he meant to this team - it's a fact we have to face if we ever want to move on." They're bold words for such a blind man. "I don't blame you, or L, or anyone but Kira. This is Kira's mess and we can't let him get away with it. That's what I have now, that's what I hold onto. I want to see him pay."

The gothic _W_ blinks on the screen across the room, an invitation for Aiber to come up. Before he goes, he says quietly, nearly apologetically, "You will."

 

\---

 

Kiyomi Takada stands there in a dressing gown, hair a mess, and Misa hates her more than a little because she's beautiful. She could have killed her in a another world, one where Light liked beautiful girls. As it is she sits on the sofa in her sweats, a piece of the Notebook clenched in her hand, dreading the occasion when she will have to speak.

"We're out of milk," Takada says, falling like petals into a straight-backed chair and casting her eyes on them like they're something dirty that's washed up on her shore and she's waiting for them to be taken out with the tide again. "If you want coffee, you'll have to take it black." 

At Misa's side, mannered but frantic, Light nods. "Please."

He sits back while Mikami - the man in a suit, wrinkled now, the man with the glasses who Light had slept with, or had as far as presentation goes - serves him grimly. They don't seem to get on anymore. Who would have thought.

Misa holds up a hand. "I'm on a cleanse," she says, because that's what all the other models say when they're offered food. She's not really sure what it means but it sounds better than saying _I may be sick on your carpet as it is_.

Takada smiles. "Of course you are." Misa can tell when someone's being condescending. She's had enough experience with it. 

She wants to go home. 

"So," Mikami says, pulling back to stand beside Takada's chair like some sort of bodyguard, "talk. Tell us what you were so eager to share, Yagami." He might be sneering if his expression had more energy to it.

Misa doesn't really understand why everyone in the room hates everyone else, but she's swept up enough in it to want to disappear. Hate takes precious effort. She wants to sleep.

"It's not my story to tell," Light responds, glancing sideways at Misa as if prompting her, but she doesn't know what to say or how to say it. She'd cried on Light in the alley, gotten her tears all over his shirt and there's still a vague wet stain there if you look closely. 

She looks closely. She squeezes her palm around the scrap of paper. 

"Misa," Light says, firmly, like it's an order.

She thinks about fainting. She wishes she would, or wishes she was a better actress so she could pretend to. "I don't know how to explain it," she says softly, when she can't think of anything else to do. She had barely communicated it to Light, just: _monster, killer, bright lights and death and the end of time, little bones and a drop of blood and sugar and spice and everything nice -_

"Misa, please." 

\- _that's what little girls are made of._

She wishes she'd start crying, tears pouring silently down here cheeks. She's made herself plenty of times before, for roles and just to get out of gym class when she'd been younger, but it's not coming now. There's a well in her and it's swallowing up everything she feels and is and wants and she's not sure what to do, or what to say, and everyone is looking at her and she can't, she can't -  

"Teru," Takada says, her voice like a drop down the well, hollowed and echoing, a porcelain jar, "I think we do need milk, actually. Hop around to the corner market and get some, will you?"

"I've told you," Mikami breathes back, low and gruff, "I'm not here to be your butler. If you want - "

"And take Yagami with you, please," Takada continues, completely cutting him off. "I think we need a little girl time, Amane-san and I."

The reactions are uproarious, if muted. Light's back immediately goes twice as stiff, and Mikami looks at Takada as if she's just asked him to go stand in traffic. Misa want to feel something just as sharp and tragic, but she doesn't have the energy for emotion, and she just sits there, waiting. She almost wants them gone - even Light. The less noise the better. She just wants to _sleep_. 

"Takada-san, I really don't think that's the best idea," he's saying, hurriedly, and Misa knows he'd only brought her here to pump them for information and then leave, and he's heavily put-off by the wasted time.

"I agree with Yagami," Mikami says, "it would be more practical - "

"I really just want some milk," Takada interrupts, seeming to care for manners just as little as she does for her current state of dress, "please." It's not a very convincing argument but she's looking in Mikami's eyes and the shaded light is falling over her like a veil, and he must understand something that neither Light nor Misa does, because after a moment he nods and turns to get his coat.

"Yagami," he beckons, without looking back.

The level of insult on Light's face would be comical if it weren't so frail, and Misa bleeds beside him and always will, but she likes seeing him hurt. She likes knowing he's not the statue he pretends to be, that he falters just like her, that they're the same in some fundamental way that means he _needs_ her, couldn't do without. He must need her, or they wouldn't be here right now. She'd still be in that diner, afraid to move. 

"I'm hesitant to leave Misa," he's saying, slipping into the role of the dashing hero as easily as blinking, and she despises him for it because if it's so simple why can't he ever do it for _her?_ Even if it's just pretend. Why does she have to know the bare bones? She wants his pretty lies because at least that's something pretty.

Before she realizes, she's saying "Go. I'll be fine." Blinking at the coffee table in front of her. His mug is untouched, steaming. He really can't argue now.

She knows he's frowning at her as he stands, mumbling stunted goodbyes that she doesn't hear, and for a moment she wants to call him back, beg him to stay, cling to his arm and not let go - but then the door shuts with a hard click and he's gone.

"Alone at last," Takada says.

Misa looks up at her and she's expecting that fierce smile, the one the competition gives you, the one from friends who aren't really your friends. From girls who write mean things about you on the bathroom wall. Takada is not smiling.

Rather, she's digging in the drawer of the side table and pulling out a thin pale bottle with bright silver lettering in another language on the cover, and shaking it so the liquid inside sloshes around. "Teru hates drinkers," she says softly and disparagingly. 

"Light, too," Misa says, without really meaning to, as Takada takes a sip and passes her the bottle. She takes it in shaking hands. Takada's nails are much more well-kept than hers.

"So," Takada says, leaning back in her chair, looser but still delicate, and maybe it's impossible for her to be anything but, "do you want to talk about death,or shall I?" 

Misa breathes deep and takes a sip.

 

\---

 

They're lying on their backs across the mattress, naked and cool with sweat on sheets that smell like acrid dust, listening to the muted whirring of the body shop across the street.

L asks again, "But did you really want me to kill you?" and his eyes feel sticky with the cloy of sleeplessness.

"Did you really want to kill me?" B's response is unchanged. "Whatever your answer is, my answer is the same. I go where you go, like a constellation." B is still poetry. B is still the madman on stage reading off tortured lines that mean nothing - or mean something, but badly - and waiting for snaps.

"That's not fair," L says, instead of, ' _That doesn't make sense,'_ like he should have. That's not even how constellations work. B knows that. He sacrifices reason for rhyme and L has never understood why. He should be too smart for that. Maybe that is why. Maybe logic is what makes you stupid.

B turns on his side, facing L again after a long love affair with the ceiling, and plants his chin the palm of his hand. He looks like a pin-up girl. "Truth rarely ever is."

"You're utterly full of shit," L tells him, but turns on his side to mirror his pose. It feels a bit like a guilty pleasure, like indulging in bad pornography, but slipping into this role - as an equal and opposing force, matched and not incongruous the way things had been with Light - is comfortable in the way that few things are. In the way that coffee and a newspaper on a sharply sunny morning is, looking out a penthouse window at a grim crooked beautiful city. 

He realizes he'd used the past tense to refer to Light. That doesn't bode well. He knows what he's doing because he does it every time. The disconnection and disassociation. He'd done it with B, but now he's back and he's falling into old traps and luxuriating in the capture. When he sees Light again, will he become the present? Should he see Light again, or is it better to divorce himself from his feelings and get on with it? And in what sense, exactly, is he using the word _better_? Better than what? And for whom?

B doesn't say anything for several minutes, so finally L states, "You've killed a lot of people who didn't deserve it," as if he's trying to remind himself. So has Light. He's killed a lot of people who did deserve it but by sheer numbers he's had to have knocked off more innocents than B.

"So have tornadoes," B replies, foggily.

And what is an innocent? A child? Someone who's never done anything bad? Does such a person really exist and if so what is their value compared to the average person? Is the absence of bad inherently better than taking the bad with the good, when the world is a self-repeating cycle, propagated by maintaining the balance that violence and kindness and all of that grey morality in between creates? But that's too clinical, isn't it? It's divorcing action from feeling, and thus taking away the substance that makes morals what they are.

You do not kill because then the person you have killed is gone, and they cannot participate in life, and the people who loved them are suffering, and we have as a species decided that the suffering of our brethren is counterproductive. _Evil_ is just a concept layered on top, a window-dressing to give it the chrome and leather tint.

"You have consciousness," L argues, mostly because he cannot abide letting B have the last word, thinking that he's stumped him. He hasn't, L's just stumping himself. He doesn't like to get to philosophical when it comes to his work, but it's often a hazard of the job.

"Do I?" B counters. "You can't be sure of that. You can't be sure of anything, that reality is anything like what you think it is, or if there even is a reality. The only thing you can be sure of is your own consciousness, and even that is subject to rocky objections." 

"Fine," L says, growing annoyed, "I'm operating under the assumption that you _have consciousness_."

"Then I'm operating under that assumption that a tornado does, too," B shoots back, grinning because he loves to play devil's advocate almost as much as he loves to play devil. 

"In that case, it should be tried for mass homicide under several international statutes."

"Do you want to make that arrest, or shall I?" 

L's annoyance is building up but it snaps back like a rubber band at the look B gives him and everything melts away comfortably and he rolls onto his back. He mumbles, "We're going to have to talk about real things at some point or another. Like Kira and Shinigami and the fact that you told me once when you were nine that you could tell when people were going to die. We're going to have to talk about black notebooks and why you don't have any burn scars and who exactly has been killing and raping children in Tokyo for the past several weeks. You're going to have to lay your cards out and tell me what I want to know. I'm going to have to threaten you with execution and you're going to have to dance around the subjects I want to hear and eventually submit. You're going to confess your love for me and I'm going to tell you to can it. I can see all this happening like a play I wrote myself." He looks sideways at B again. "I know you too well." 

B looks at him like he believes every word, but without the awe that L is used to inspiring. B is in awe of him, maybe, but in different ways. "You know too much for your own good," he says, silkily, like piano keys and crooked fingers. "You're going to overload and implode the way you always do and the play will cut off in the second act and the curtains will fall closed on an empty audience and I'll be there to pick up the shards of your ego. You're too smart but you're also a self-defeating little child. I love you most when you're disastrous."

L sits up. The words hurt, like lifting small bits of skin one inch at a time, and the flesh beneath it boils. He'd be raging if Light had said something like that to him, but Light doesn't know him well enough to hurt him properly. His barbs are cruel but they melt against L's outer layer. B knows how to get under his skin because L had grown it in part to keep him out. Light is more comfortable to have around but comfort doesn't save anyone. It's just a balm for the wound.

L is the disease and B is the experimental treatment that never works but that he keeps trying anyway. He should have known he'd end up in the midst of this crises again, but it's strangely peaceful here. A slow gust of wind flows in from the window and it smells like cold grass. B's convictions are loose and hazy and changeable and L could drown in them. Everything is separated like a dream and he could stay still and drift away into this house, but he knows if he does he'll hate himself for it. He'd hated himself for staying with Light and it will be the same with Beyond. The only solution is silence. The only way to live is _without_.

He stands up on the creaking floorboards. They feel almost hollow. The place probably has termites. He picks up a pair of jeans and t-shirt, not bothering to differentiate between whose is whose. It doesn't seem to matter. He and B could switch bodies and he doesn't think he'd notice. 

"If that's the case," he says, buttoning up his trousers with fidgety hands, "stay tuned for disaster."

He walks to the door expecting for B to follow him, keep him locked on a leash and unable to move out of his sight, but there's a hazy knowing glance searing his back that says that B's fairly certain that his claws are in and won't be easily dug out. Isn't that always the way of it?

"Bring back coffee if you go out," B calls after him, sounding cozier than the location at all warrants, stretched out nude and pale and shameless on the bed, "and watch out for tornadoes." 

L's steps creak down the hallway and he tries to process the words without feeling them. It's mid-morning and he's going to do what he has to.

 

\---

 

The heater hums lowly from the edge of the room and the second sip of alcohol sends Misa's throat burning. She feels too hot in her jacket but she's not comfortable enough to take it off, so she just flushes dodgily and sets the bottle on the coffee table. It makes a hollow sound against the wood.

"I haven't slept in days," Takada murmurs, standing up to peek out through the window. Maybe she can spot Light and Mikami exiting the building, or maybe she's just scanning the passersby, but either way her face is beautiful in profile. The kind of classic features that put Misa's bubblegum pop schtick to shame. She knows it but at the moment she doesn't care. The real bother is the lack of numbers, no little red letters spelling out _Kiyomi Takada_ , not anymore.

She turns back to face Misa. "Not since it happened. I think she took it from me." 

"She?" Misa asks in a thin voice, not because she's really confused but because the room drops into a silence that demands she ask it. If she knows nothing else, she knows her cues.

Takada picks up the bottle, falling back into her chair, but she doesn't drink any yet, just sloshes the liquid around and watches it move. "I don't know why I decided it was a female. Do you think monsters even have gender? I don't suppose it matters. It just felt like that to me."

It had to Misa, too, but she hadn't really thought much about it. She hasn't really thought about anything, because it'd all been hazy half-between moments and then struggling bursts of activity with Light. She can remember the white light and silky orange now without even wanting to cry.

"Did you tell that to - to Mikami-san?" she says after a few moments. If Mikami knows that then that means he can tell Light, and Misa won't have to ask anything at all. She can just sit here until they return.

She wishes they were back already. She wishes she could drink more. She doesn't even like alcohol but there's a bubbling in her head now that tells her she could start to. She feels too frail to take the bottle out of Takada's hands, and that's hardly good manners, anyway. 

Takada laughs a glittering camera laugh, but drops off in the middle of it, like she's grown suddenly bored. "Oh, no, he doesn't believe me at all. He thinks I'm suffering from sort of trauma-induced hallucination. That's the problem with today's businessman, so much know-how and no imagination." She sips some of the vodka. At this rate they'll both be wasted before there's milk in the fridge. "He's been kind to me, though," she continues, stilling, looking at something past Misa and up towards the ceiling. "Kinder than I would have expected. He's stayed with me since it happened. But he doesn't understand." She smiles at Misa then, a conspiratorial smile, like the ones that children give to their friends across crowded classrooms. "Men never do when it comes to women like us. That's why I sent them away."

Misa's not sure what gender has to do with it, but she doesn't say that. "You think I'm like you?" She can't tell if she sounds flattered or offended, and isn't sure quite how she feels, anyway.

"You must be," Takada says. "Otherwise, why would she have chosen us, of all people?"

Maybe that's a passable conclusion to come to given the information that she has, but Misa knows it's not really about that. She was chosen because she had the Note, and Takada - she was probably just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Or the right one, depending on who you're asking.

"I think it was probably just coincidence. It - she killed all those children, too. Do you think they were like us?"

Takada looks at her but doesn't say anything, brow crumpled and lips set in a thin line. After a minute of that, Misa says, "Can I have another drink?" and takes the bottle when it's offered to her. 

A few more minutes pass before Takada stands up, peering out through the blinds again as if she expects something to be out there. Probably she does. Misa wonders what she'd think if she told her about Shinigami, about the eyes and about the rules and about the realm above them, made of bone and moonlight and old time, the way Rem had described it. Misa's not even sure she knows what that means, but she can imagine it. She used to be able to feel it like part of her, but it's gone now, along with her eyes.

She thinks she would tell the truth if not for Light, but that's a great big _if_ and an impossibility. A fear. He's going to come back in a few minutes and Misa can't decide if she's waiting for him or dreading him.

Takada's eyes are clear and removed and even when she looks at Misa she never quite focuses. "I thought about marrying him at one point, you know. That boyfriend of yours - if he is that. He was a very good candidate for it, but he never gave me the time of day. I think I was offended by it then, but I suppose he doesn't give it to anyone. I thought at first it was simply a matter of alternative tastes - if you understand me - but it seems he didn't regard Teru any more highly."

She examines her nails vaguely, but Misa doesn't know why. They're clean and clear and perfect.

"He only comes around for horror stories," Takada continues. "I'm starting to think the only thing that boy cares about is death." 

_Not the only thing_ , Misa thinks but doesn't say, and everything seems suddenly humorous. "You don't know him," she snaps petulantly, taking a deep drink from the bottle, and she knows she's only being defensive.

"No," Takada agrees, "no, I rather don't." She looks away, then appears to be hit with a new idea and stands quickly. "You can read English, right? You must be able to, you've done shoots in America."

Misa blinks up at her with wide eyes, thrown off by the question, so out of line as it is with the rest of the conversation. She's passable at the English alphabet, but speaking seems like a lot of work right now, so she just gives a stunted nod. 

Takada's already reaching into a drawer - the same one where she'd stowed her alcohol - and pulling out a pad of paper and a pen. She sits down next to Misa on the sofa without seeming to notice her proximity, the coolness of her skin lined up beside her, and leaning down to draw slow, even English letters in neat penmanship. 

"I saw this when I saw her," Takada says. "Does it mean anything to you?"

Misa doesn't really understand the words, but she has seen them before, along with the orange tint of a world-ending sunset, and long pale hands that had stolen her memory away.

 

\---

 

Aiber strides into the room without preamble, not bothering to lean and lounge in his usual way, but rather making a point to be as unsettling as possible. Watari is straight-backed in front of wild stream of information that glides across the screen like a movie on fast-forward. His hair is tinted slivery in the blue light of the screen. 

"So, this operative," Aiber says, coming up to stand behind him, "wouldn't happen to be blonde, about yay-high, name of Wedy?" His rage his barely contained, but it wars with a tiredness that keeps it all bottled down.

Watari glances back over his shoulder, eyes lighting keenly over his glasses, before turning back to his work. "Might be. You'll rather have to wait and see."

Aiber gains a grim satisfaction from finally acting on an urge that's been pawing at him for days, and yanks Watari's chair back to twirl him around and lean down to force them eye-to-eye. A sniper is not much use without his gun, and the forty or so years Watari has got on him can in this situation only serve as a downside.

"Sorry, but that's not good enough this time, pops. All due respect, but you owe me some answers." No more Mister Passably Decent Guy.

For a man living in such old bones, Watari doesn't flinch, barely seems moved by the threat in Aiber's body language. "And what exactly have you done to earn these answers?" he asks, head cocked in a way strangely reminiscent of L. The resemblance is so sharp in that moment that Aiber takes few steps back without even meaning to.

He stands there, breath heavier than it rightly should be, and in the next moment he droops, coming down from the high of tragedy and into a world where villainy is an undefined mass instead of a sharply profiled boy in a pressed shirt by the name of Yagami. No more heroics, he supposes, but it all aches for no reason and he finds himself in the good old defeatist heap he was born in.

"I'm drowning here," he tells Watari resignedly. "Can't you give a guy a hand-up? Or did L really learn it all from you?"

Watari's face is set stern, but not unkind, and after a moment of scanning Aiber up and down it seems he takes something like pity. Turning back to his screen, he says, "Wedy is here, but she's not the only one. And she's not the horse I'm betting on to end this race."

Aiber pulls out a sliding chair at the adjacent terminal and falls into it. Still sober, but it hurts less now. "Don't you think it's a rather unfair gamble when I don't even know all the players?"

"You don't need to know," Watari says, and it's chilly and distanced as he fades back into his primary mode - gathering information with a pinched brow and a mouth set flat. "Just stand back and take your cues when they're given."

Aiber rolls his eyes. "You know, there's a reason I became a conman and not an actor. I was never very good at following directions."

If Watari hears him he doesn't respond, and Aiber takes that as good a sign as any that this scene is done. He stands and shuffles out, steps gaining strength with every passing moment. If he's not going to find answers here, he'll just have to look somewhere else.

 

\---

 

The dessert freezer groans at his side and L plays with the curly-cue wire of the telephone, tracing the fault lines on the plastic covering. There's a hacking breath on the other side of the line, as if the captain is undergoing a brief medical emergency.

"That's Chief Yagami's son," he says, after a stiff silence during which he evidently reels himself in.

"I'm aware," L replies. There's a line forming at the front counter, a man in spotted brown coat with a toddler on his shoulders haggling with the shop's illustrious proprietor. "We'll also need you to bring in his sometime girlfriend, Misa Amane. I don't know if you're familiar with the September issue of _TeenPop Magazine_ but she made the cover. She's a higher risk factor, so make sure that your men take extra care with her arrest. They'll need to keep the protective helmets on at all costs." 

"Of course," the captain says gruffly, probably insulted, but wise enough with his career moves to know who and who not to talk back to, and that's what L is banking on to get this order to go through; his good - or, at the least, widely revered - name. 

There's possibly an easier way to do this, one with the voice modulator and Watari's skills in diplomacy, but he can't quite bring himself to wander in from out of the storm without anything to show for it, just a stray taking shelter. If he's going home he wants an envoy to announce him, a cheering crowd, rose petals at his feet. That, or to slip in unnoticed and be treated as if he'd never been gone. If he thought he could get away with writing off his sojourn as his own idea, he would, but not even he can make all of the loose ends in that story tie up neatly, so the best thing he can manage at short notice is the rather pitiable truth.

He hangs up the receiver after scant goodbyes and slumps toward the back of the line, hands in his pockets and trying to organize his thoughts into neat, quantifiable rows. It's only when he gets to the front counter and orders four coffees that he realizes that he doesn't have any money on him, or cards, or some sort of well-dressed intermediary to get him what he wants. 

Stepping back from the counter, he holds up his hands, cancels his order without apology and walks barefoot and grinning into the street. Helplessness shouldn't make him quite so happy, but it's this feeling of being _lost_ that he treasures, rather than the stiff confines of _found_ which he usually lives in. Light, B, even the whole of his work with the Wammy's establishment - he's always so very accounted for. It's only in the midst of a case, captured by a Siberian mob doctor or roaming the streets of Cairo in drag or hiding out after an explosion in the coastal towns of Haiti that he finds his escape.

In this small, almost suburban corner of Tokyo that has been left to ruin by the rest of the buzzing city that surrounds it, he is not found. He has an erring desire to walk and keep walking, away from the Kira case and the past that so likes to hollow him. It's not an unfamiliar urge.

He's standing on the moss bitten sidewalk outside of the corner store with pebbles digging into his feet when a squat, beige car pulls up to the curb and rolls down its window to reveal his own face staring back at him. It's not actually _his_ face, of course, but L thinks he's spent more time looking at B than he ever has himself, and his features give a better picture of what he is anyhow. Like the copy is the original and the original is the copy.

"How much for a one-off in the backseat, huh, sugar?" B asks, brow contorted with a self-gratifying humor and L would laugh except he doesn't do things like that, so he just stands there. After a moment the passenger's door comes open and B says, as if the previous joke had never been made and this is their first moment of acquaintance since lying together on that bare mattress in that bare room setting the universe right side up, "After I sent you out for joe it sort of struck me that - "

"I'd have to pinch it if I wanted any?" L supplies, without a gesture to his empty pockets, curling up into the passenger's seat. There's no wear and tear in this car, and the keys are firmly in the ignition, so at least this ride wasn't hot-wired and doesn't have to be ditched the moment they shut it off. 

B pulls out onto the main road, heading in the opposite direction of where they'd come from - and L hopes he's left Wedy and Mello in decent repair - and says, "That, and there was a pretty high likelihood that you weren't going to come back."

"I said I would," L tells him, even though he probably wouldn't have. 

"You say a lot of things, doll. You're rather known for it." They switch lanes and B flips off someone in the rearview. "I know you were going to come back when you left, but once you were gone, reality changed. Out of sight, out of mind, out of my reach, and rinse, repeat the last several years." His eyes glint. His fingernails are uneven, grip firm on the steering wheel. "I don't want to do that again. I don't think I can take the big house a second time. I'm very delicate." He flutters his eyelashes at L like a showgirl.

L's pretty sure B can take anything, but saying so feels at once too much like a compliment as well as a strange sexual innuendo.

He leans his chin on his hand and watches the rush of the grey, blue, white, browns of the city out his window. He says, ignoring B's effusive personal amusements, "Would you like to go with me to witness an arrest?" 

B grins wide at him. "Do the stars weep when the moon dies?"

L's mouth goes flat, the bristling expanse of his brow rising. "I don't really know. Is that a yes?"

Beyond leans across the seats, making the car swerve dangerously, and presses a dry kiss to the edge of L's cheek. "Just give me directions."

 

\---

 

It's a quarter past 9 when the call comes in about the location of one Light Yagami. Wasn't at home, the exhausted officer tells him through the buzz of midmorning traffic, and Quillish expresses his sympathies in as distanced a tone as he can manage. That's a part of the job: the distance. 

_"Never become emotionally involved,"_ he'd told L, during some lesson or another, when he'd been ten, perhaps eleven. They'd been in one of the various forests that edges Winchester, reviewing the basic tenants of cartography, and L had been needling him for investigatory pointers as they'd waited out the worst of a summer storm beneath the eaves of a ramshackle and quite long deserted shed.  

L had peered defiantly over the collar of his yellow slicker and asked, _"Why not?"_

Quillish had never hemmed and hawed over the children the way Roger was wont to do. He'd thought about it briefly, rather than simply pulling a stock answer from his breast pocket. _"Because it makes it harder to do the job."_

_"What if it makes it easier?"_ L had responded, quickly, as if he'd been saving that the whole time, a secret and highly valued trump card. _"What if it makes me better?"_  

_"Then by all means,"_ Quillish had told him, as the rush of rain had slowed.

He's still not sure which of them had been right, or if there is a right way of it. He tells the officer that Light is not in, because it's the truth, and because he'd like to know what Aiber had done to arrange this arrest before he makes the decision to support it one way or another. 

"And you don't have any idea where else he might be?" the man asks in a burly, plush tone, more routine than curious. 

"Could you hold for a moment?" Quillish says. "I'll need to check."

The man grunts his assent and then Quillish switches lines, calling Aiber's cellphone even though he's in the building. He can hear the ringtone - one of a selection of overly cheery French pop songs - from down the hall.The first ring is routine, the second laziness, and the third simply sheer defiance. He picks up on the fourth.

"Yessir?"

"What exactly have you set in motion?" he asks, not bothering with the pleasantries.

"Curious all of a sudden, huh?" He can hear the smugness both over the line and through the low thrum of Aiber's voice that echoes down the hall, growing ever closer. "Well then, how about I show you mine if you show me yours?"

"I'm too old for that game," Quillish responds, not skipping a beat. "I just got a call from a police officer looking to arrest Light Yagami. Something you want to tell me?"

There's a puzzled silence and then the line goes dead and the door flies open and Aiber is standing, face wide and brows up, in the doorway. "That wasn't me," he says, but there's a buzzing, nervous energy to him that hadn't been present during the phone call. Quillish lifts a skeptical brow. "Cross my heart."

"Well, if it wasn't you, and it wasn't me, then that only leaves a few suspects." He doesn't switch back to the call with the police officer, but rather brings up the stylized _W,_ getting ready to put it to use.

"L," Aiber says, the hope that lights in his face jagged and frail and utterly prepared to break and be broken. 

"Ideally," Quillish agrees, but his suspicions lie closer to Beyond, because of the two, he's the one who is most definitely in town. For all they know L could be off sunning on some tropical island on Kira's dime. Probably isn't, but the visual brings Quillish a grim amusement and he lets it settle in his mind. "Any idea of Yagami's current location?" 

Aiber rolls his eyes. "His father got a call from him earlier, but after the conversation we had this morning, he didn't look likely to tell me, so I let it lie. I'm sure there's not a man currently in this building who would refuse you, though." He smiles tight and expectant. 

Quillish sends out the signal, the letter that precedes the voice, then flips on the mic and lets his words crackle over the loud speakers. "Yagami-san," he says, "might I ask about your son's whereabouts? He's usually in by this time of the morning." He's not overly subtle, never asks where Light is when he's late and this instance sticks out, stark and strange, a different kind of morning on a different kind of day.

He is banking on propriety more than anything else to get him his answer and, given the man he's dealing with, it comes through in a pinch.

"I, uh, yes," Soichiro says after a notable silence, during which all of the eyes in the room turn in his direction. "He called in half an hour ago and told me that he'd be absent for the first half of the day, as he's gone to see Kiyomi Takada for follow-up questioning." He scratches nervously at the grey hairs lining his jaw and Quillish feels a well meant sort of condescension, the way he always does for men who grow old. 

"The witness from the other day? He's gone back to the station, or to her home?" 

"I'm not sure." No matter, it's an easy check. "What is this about, if I may ask, Watari-san?"

Since he's facing the screen and not the camera, Quillish is only treated to a side-view of his imploring facial expression. "Just a routine check-in," he says, and severs the line. Next to him, Aiber is shuffling from foot to foot with a nervous excitement that seems to fill the air with a strange, silent static. 

Quillish doesn't turn to look at him, just switches the line to the policeman back on and says, "Sir, are you there? I believe I have a location for you." 

It doesn't much matter who had made the call. Further investigation into the situation can only sabotage things, and if it is L, then there's no way his interference will go over well. If it's B, then it will only go worse. The only thing left to do is watch it play out and check to see who's left standing in the resulting wreckage.

  

\---

 

There is a group of cop cars outside of Light's apartment - a thin, ugly building that L has never seen before, surrounded by neat shrubberies that have shriveled in the autumn chill - and they watch the group of helmeted officers, possibly the same as from the night before, shake their shiny heads at one another and climb back into their vehicles.

"Follow them," L tells B from his slouch in the passenger's seat.

"Miles and miles ahead of you," B says without looking at him, one hand drawing lazy circles on his thigh that shoot shameful little sparks through L's bones. This is all so familiar it's jarring, this reversion to a former self, but the whole world is loose and unmanageable at the moment and being in unhealthy teenage lust with his own personal ghost is the only thing he can do to ground himself. It's the only thing that's easy. 

B has always been easy, and at once unendingly difficult.

"In your sweaty, adolescent dreams," L tells him, not smiling sideways with a cocked eyebrow and an air of heady conspiracy, but wanting to.

B makes the expression for him, if with slightly more malice. "You always are." 

They head into another neighborhood that L doesn't recognize, wholly more high-end, and L wonders if this is where Misa has moved to. Wonders what Light is doing with her. Looking for him, he hopes - doesn't want to, doesn't want to suffer the indignity of caring - but doesn't think he could breathe at all if he thought that Light could breathe without him. Love or no love, there is a hollowing need, one he's staked his reputation on, one he's hoping will save all of them, or else kill all of them.

L hasn't yet decided which option he prefers.

The cops put on their lights, speeding up quickly and parting traffic to parallel park in front of one of the many ritzy apartment complexes. B parks across the street at L's insistence not to draw attention, and they watch.

The first man L sees is one he doesn't recognize, tall and broad, but self-imploding, with more hair than he needs and a nicer suit than L would like him to have. He's attractive. Light is, too, utterly more so, even pale and withered and stumbling with a shopping bag clutched to his chest. They look like they're going for a friendly stroll.

L is half-tempted to tell B to drive up on the sidewalk and hit the stranger with the car. B would. Then he'd turn it around - like he does, like a genie twisting a wish - and hit Light, too. Always the misbehavior.

B would do anything for him, even still. So much that it's too much. Light won't do enough, and it's going to get him killed. L doesn't know what to do, so he sits, and he watches, and he waits, feeling the warm, fizzing press of Beyond's groping fingers through the material of his jeans.

 

\---

 

Light had insisted on paying for the milk and Mikami had insisted that he not and he had acquiesced partly out of politeness and partly out of an antsy desire to return to the apartment as soon as possible - before Misa, left alone with the scrap of her memories and someone who had wanted to, for whatever reason, get her by herself, can spill the entire plot in less than twenty minutes.

He does insist on carrying the bag, however, and as Mikami makes sure to keep several feet away from him at all times, he gets away with that much.

"You used me," Mikami comments flatly when they're about a block away from the house. They haven't exchanged more than vague small talk the whole way there and back, so the fact that he's bringing this up now either means he's forcing himself to do it before he runs out of time, or else he's banking on their arrival home to cut the conversation short.

Light breathes in, refrains from rolling his eyes, and forces a polite expression. His words are less polite: "You didn't seem to mind."

Mikami frowns deeply, but it doesn't seem necessarily directed at him. "That's not what I meant. Sex" - he says the word like he has trouble with it - "sex isn't something that matters much to me, either way. You wanted to, for whatever reason, and - equally as mystifying - at the time I wanted to as well. It was mutually beneficial." He looks at Light then, and if he's fibbing he's doing a damn good job of it. "The flowers are what tripped me up," he says. 

"Roses were too cliche, huh?" Light keeps his voice distant, shifting the weight of the grocery bag across his arm. He doesn't care to have this conversation in the first place, but this is more or less the worst possible time for it.

"You used me," Mikami says again, but with a different cadence to his voice this time - or maybe it had been there all along, and Light is only now bothering to hear it. "You set me up. The police came to that address you sent me to. You sent me there for a reason. I was a scapegoat for something, wasn't I?"

They come up around a slanted corner and the sun crests over the tops of the buildings, momentarily halting the flow of monotonous accusation before they drift back into the long grey shadows again. Light doesn't know what to say in response or if this is even a concern at this point, considering how wholly everything else is coming apart around him. The suspicions of a prosecutor with some nice biceps is really the least damaging thing going on today.

"Amane broke up with you very publicly and obviously," Mikami continues, "with me as a catalyst, but now you show up here with her like nothing's happened. Everything was finely tuned. Everybody saw what they were supposed to see. What I wonder is, _why_?" 

"Maybe it's confidential," Light responds vaguely, keeping his voice distant and important, testing the waters.

Mikami frowns. "If what you were doing was approved by some sort of governing system, you would be here on their behalf, waving your badge around like before. Instead, you brought your girlfriend over to talk about monsters." His eyes are level, the sunlight glinting off his glasses and reflecting a glare back. 

"Was that a mistake?" Light asks, after a slow moment. "Was I wrong in thinking that Kiyomi has been wanting badly for someone to talk about monsters with?"

Mikami arches his eyebrows but it still doesn't give him much depth of expression. "You really believe all of this then?" he asks skeptically. "Child killing beasts with orange hair?" 

Light freezes, his steps slowing gradually as his body catches up with his mind. "Orange hair?"

There's a police car pulling up to the curb and Light only notices it out of the corner of his eye, wading on the edge of his consciousness but left out of the main view in favor of the present issues that dwarf him. Orange? Had Misa said something like that? Can what Misa says - or Mikami, or Takada - be counted upon? Not at all. But it can be factored in and he is factoring it. 

He wonders, indistinctly, if Shinigami can even have hair at the same time as Mikami shrugs and says, "It was just some nonsense that Kiyomi said the other night when she was frightened and babbling," and just as these two thoughts are being processed, coalescing in his head to crawl outward into tiny, tethering theories and urges and doubts, another police car pulls up.

Then another. 

Light can feel the carton of milk through the bag, cool and solid and something to grip as his whole body seizes up. His instincts are insisting with a fizzing urgency that he run, run, _run_ _get out of here away hide_ , but the part of his mind that is floating outside of the present moment thinks all of these thoughts, like _they might not even be here for you_ and _running just makes you look guilty_ , and he manages to reason himself out of the self-preservation that the unthinking parts of him are demanding.

The struggle lasts just long enough for the men in helmets to emerge, like a swarm, taking up the deserted sidewalk. Mikami slows, body halting the way one does when faced with a traffic accident or the effects of a natural disaster - waiting for a cue as to how to receive it. The initial confusion, the attempts of the brain to justify the event as something that can fit into everyday life - a joke, a mistake - and then the realization, the blank horror.

"Light Yagami," one of the officers says, and it might have been comforting, if a betrayal, to hear a familiar voice from behind the mask, but the man speaking to him is an utter stranger. A stranger with a pair of handcuffs. "You're being taken in for questioning in connection with a matter of international security. Please come quietly." 

A car floats past on the road, the traffic signals change and a handful of pedestrians, unconnected and ignoring each other, cross the street like loose wires. Fuzzy pop music plays out of somebody's window radio and the wind rushes with a morning quiet.

They are in the center of it all, the universe is orbiting around the fixed point that is this moment, and Light's wiry mess of a brain begs him to do something grand, to make a show and sparkling scene out of what might be, is begging to be, _the end_.

"Yagami?" Mikami asks, brow thick and dark, finally in the present instead of drifting outwardly, disconnected. He's here to watch things burn. Things are going to burn.

Light is going to burn them.

The metal of the first cuff touches his wrist, cold and flooding him with sense-memory, and he wonders who had ordered this arrest without really wondering, because he knows, he can feel it, he can feel it in him and on him and around him, but then he always can. So maybe it's a dream. Maybe this isn't happening. The world is what you make it and he could erase this part. He could knee the first cop in the stomach, shove through the second one, yell, confess, break down and sob. It's all so illusory but so real, it all might have happened already or be happening now.

He thinks, vaguely in the back of his mind where the lazy mornings float like petals in a stream, that he might be having a panic attack.

And then he sees him.

The man across the street, the man in a white shirt and blue jeans, standing on the sidewalk with his back straight and his mouth set, a ghost come to watch them burn him at the stake, and it's such a relief to see him again after Light had thought he'd been lost, and it's such a blow to his gut, too.

He looks at Light and Light looks at him and even though he'd known, felt it with the quavering certainty that he feels things like truth and justice and maybe even _love_ , having him here, in the present and watching springs reality on him like a trap, crashing down and making everything too sharp and real. The cuffs are not a metaphor for destruction, they are just cuffs.

This is an arrest.

He is being arrested. He realizes dazedly that he isn't breathing and hasn't been, the blood in his veins pumping thickly, and there are spots forming over his vision. Both the cuffs are on his wrists, Mikami is being escorted away from him, and the circle of helmeted policemen around him seems to grow, filling up the pale morning with black glass and badges, glinting at him like cruel machinery. It's all crashing down on him and things are burning but he didn't light the fire.

"I don't understand," he says, and he hadn't meant to or tried to, but there it is floating like a shameful secret and he does understand, he knows the truth like a fine friend and he loathes it, and all of their gloved hands are on him, sickly and too warm, pulling and thrashing. "I don't," he says. 

L watches him from across the street and he can't stop himself from turning to watch back, meeting his eyes, and he doesn't know what to do, didn't plan for this, didn't have time - everything's spinning - where is Misa? Why isn't she with him? She would prevent this. Why did they separate her from him? Why did they take L? The world with all its grabby hands. He's drowning, he can't breathe, all of the hairs on his body are sharp with sensation and he's sweating more than is attractive, will smell in the interrogation room. Doesn't want to breathe his own air.

He's not sure when he decides to buck, trying to to shake the hands off, get them away from him. Body moving like an animal, trapped and panicked. He doesn't know what to struggle against so he just struggles.

"Get off me," he says, quiet and thin, it hurts his throat.

"Yagami," somebody's saying. So many people are saying his name, trying to hold him still, and even though he can barely make out L's expression across the street, the stain of something like pity reflects back at him and it makes him shake with a familiar fury, a fury called home, low and simmering always, and suddenly here and swelling, boiling, tearing him open.

"It's _him_!" he shouts, lunging forward, finger pointed crookedly to the lone white figure on the sidewalk. "He set me up! He set me up!" There are hands all over him. L's expression changes but Light's vision is blurring and he can't see it. "Don't you understand? He's a liar! He's corrupt! He set me up and you all are letting him!"

It doesn't occur to him until later that none of them know that it's L he's pointing at, that no one recognizes the sickly man in frumpy clothes as the one pulling the strings of this operation. Accusations mean nothing when flung at a nobody, an extra on the film reel that plays them through this action scene.

Mikami is watching him like a spectator, mingled sympathy and disgust and something like plain scientific interest warring on his expressionless face.

"You have to let me go!" he yells, without thinking, only feeling it, the tidal wave of hollow rage and the sharp sting of abandonment. He was always betrayed, but now he is alone. 

L stays on the other side of the street. Light's voice hits high notes. He feels like he is going to faint. He doesn't remember the last time he slept, or ate, or even realized he was in a physical body and not simply an omniscient, overarching consciousness moving through the city, trying to fix every one of its tragedies at once.

Children are dying, are dead, and he doesn't care. Misa has lost her Note and he doesn't care. He is coming apart, making a public spectacle of himself and if he feels anything particular it's lost under the gauzy suffocation of the moment. "It was him," he yells again, as if it will mean anything this time. They're barely even looking where he's pointing. He's not even sure he's speaking out loud. 

He's being pulled into a car, the tinted interior drowning him like a cold dip in a lake, and he sees Mikami being questioned by some of the men off to the side, and Takada's building just down the street hazy with the early glow, passersby watching with curious trepidation, the streets pervaded with an oblique disquiet. Through the slanting cracks between the bodies pulling and pushing at him he can see L standing there on the other side of the street.

A car pulls up, beige and beaten up, loping to a stop at the curb, and L climbs in. Whoever opens the door for him has a rowdy head of black hair and a white t-shirt. Two L's, he thinks, and wants to laugh because it's the stuff of fantasies just as much as it is of nightmares. One is already too much to keep a hold on. He cannot possibly manage anymore. He can't manage anything right now. Even sitting up is hard. 

He slumps onto the policeman beside him.

"We just want to ask you some questions," the man says in an unsteady voice. He's sounds distantly familiar, like maybe they'd met one day when Light used to go and visit his father at the office. The person that Light is now, ungainly and struggling, without a way to differentiate up from down and left from right - L from himself from the other L from the city streets that the cold, pale sun beats down on - is sharply different from any person he has ever been before.

"No, you don't," he says, low and conspiratorial, and maybe partly unconscious. "You want to kill me."

They pass the car with two L's in it when they pull away from the curb, the low rumble of the motor merging with the buzzing in Light's head to form something like a lullaby. He's dripping slowly into sleep, but he has just enough awareness to register, with a soft blink, that one of the L's is grinning at him with a mouth that he's never seen before.

 

\---

 

The sidewalk fills up with the blue-black uniforms of the NPA and Misa is at the window before Takada even finishes writing. She knows what's happening before she sees him being shoved into the car, wants to run out and would if she could get herself to move, but it all feels too futile. The streets are filling up with onlookers and she feels like the furthest satellite in the heavens from two stories above. 

Everything's crashing, but everything always has been. 

Takada comes slowly, drifting over with haughty grace, to stand beside her. "Doesn't Light work for the police?" she says, with only vague curiosity as they cart him off. 

Misa doesn't answer. This feels at once like deja vu and a prophecy. History repeating. History forever happening in every moment and in every possible future. There's a group of helmeted men surrounding Mikami's lean, stranded figure and as they move - in one great organized mass, an oncoming army - towards the building they're in, Misa realizes that they are coming for her and nothing else.

Not everything is lost, but nothing is found, and all she really wants is to curl up in a warm bed with Light's sleeping body - because he's only kind when he's unconscious - and write names in her book the way she is now accustomed to. She has designed herself around his grand plans, morphed to fit the role of his murderous goddess, and losing that is just as good as losing him. And now he really is lost.

There's a heavy knock on the door and if Rem were here this would be different, but both she and Ryuk have been absent all day and there's nothing for it. Takada goes to answer and Misa drops the scrap of paper clenched in her hand, losing with it both her memory and any meaning that the letters traced out of the coffee table - S-A-D-I-E M-A-R-K-O-V-I-T-C-H - might have held.

The cops come in and they cuff her and she wonders why. She doesn't glance at the English words, just yells a lot about Light and gets tears on her cheeks.

 

\---

 

The first day after they had left him Syd had slept for 14 hours. The dust in his apartment had flared up with his entrance, circling like a slow storm in the mid-morning light of his entryway and he'd collapsed on his bed and slept until the middle of the night, basking in the relief of his loneliness. The absence of the overhanging threat.

The next morning he buys coffee and pastries on his own dime and goes down to the station as soon as Edmund's shift starts, with an apologetic smile and several packets of sugar. He can't remember how Edmund takes his coffee, so he prepares for everything.

The relief in his eyes when he sees Syd is relieving in itself, and after tentative pleasantries they make lunch plans and Syd goes out for a several hour long smoke to check on the shop, clean up the blood stains, take out the rubbish, and google how to make the smell of death go away. 

At noon they meet at a pub for sandwiches. Edmund's job forbids drinking on his lunch hour and, against his better judgement, Syd is taking Beyond'd advice and sticking with the sobriety. They don't talk about much of value, only a passing mention of Wedy - "What happened with that American bird, then?" - and nothing but a staggered awkwardness to suggest the uneasy terms on which they'd left each other.

"No more ghosts, then?" is the parting question. 

Syd smiles and something aches but he lets it. "No more ghosts," he says, and they leave it on that note.

 

\---

  

It's only the next day that he gets things sorted out well enough to make the drive out to the cemetery. He picks his car up at Heathrow, unscathed but stinking of cigarettes and tuned to all the bad 80's radio stations. Sadie had been buried in her hometown, which is just outside of an hour's drive from London and stained a violent autumn orange at this time of year. Her gravestone is new and shines a cool slate grey next to the worn plots of her relatives. The spaces reserved for her parents are unoccupied. She'd died before them. They'd always said Syd was a bad influence, and obviously they'd been right.

The last time he had been to her grave B had been there, and Syd had been drunk and crying and horrified. The day is peaceful here, a billowing film-view of the countryside, and it feels like a whole world separate from the last few days of nightmarish mundanity and tiredness.

He can still feel B's arms around him, the touch seared into his skin. There's something more than wrong with that man, but Syd is by this point past caring. He is here and she is here, if still and cold and rotted through. He is with her and that's what matters.

The bone is in his satchel. He can't remember what part of the leg it is, the technical name - it's been too long since he's been in school and he'd been too spliffed up for it to matter at the time, anyway. It's broad daylight when he starts digging, but no one's around and no one comes to stop him, even as evening comes on. The job takes twice as long by himself, but the purity of the task overhauls his exhaustion.

This is the right thing to do. He's just giving back what's been stolen from her.

When he finally reaches the coffin he has a hell of a time getting it open, hands fumbling in the mounting dark and wondering vaguely about the smell. It had stunk worse the first time, but since she's more fully decomposed now, should't it be worse? He decides there must be some biological reason for this - maybe the smell fades, it doesn't much matter - as he finally manages to get a grip and pull back the lid of the coffin.

It's empty.

He stares for several moments, squinting, trying to see a corpse that is not there. Sadie is not in her grave. 

And it occurs to him then that he'd lied, or just been wrong, or both, because there are plenty more ghosts left.

 

\---

**tbc.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, syd! hello, takada and mikami! hello, light's good old psychosis! hello, the beginning of the end! we're officially edging into third arc and it may be a bumpy ride, but hopefully you guys will like it somewhat? we're going to be seeing a lot of mystical and supernatural elements in the following chapters, because that's something i love about the dn universe and am excited to explore.
> 
> i'm hoping against hope that the next update won't take as long, and also that this chapter didn't disappoint too much? i love you guys, thank you so much for reading, and as always, all reviews and comments are wildly appreciated and treasured!


	26. the big bang

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, only three weeks for an update, that's not so abominable this time, is it? well, anyway, hi, i'm taking a break from tumblr this week and thus getting plenty done, so here you are! very special special thanks to my bb darling friend ren for introducing me to the poem that is the source of this chapter's leading quote. this time what's going on is mostly a weird exploration of L/B/mello/wedy in varying dynamics because i like tangents but also there's build-up and a vague hint of plot. mostly just awkward domesticity, tho!
> 
> anyway, cheers, i struggled a lot with some of these scenes so i hope it's at least somewhat readable, and even if it's not thank you all for your continued support and kindness!

_"I am the one below,_

_and they come up to me._

_I am the judgment and the acquittal._

_I, I am sinless,_

_and the root of sin derives from me."_

\- Unknown, _The Thunder, Perfect Mind_

 

\---

 

"I'm going to tell you a story, Midora."

"Oh, why me, your Majesty?"

"Why?" The King asks himself, blinking his great eye up at the quivering, cold heavens that peek in through the worn edges of his golden chambers, seeing in a moment the destruction and the rebirth of a number of worlds, and wondering vaguely why it is so drafty in here. "Because you're the only one who still listens to me." 

 

\---

 

It starts with darkness. God, or somebody, says, "Let there be light!" at some point, but before that there is darkness, and an infinite, nebulous emptiness that floats in it and that it floats in. The universe is not a universe, not even an idea, only an absence. The dark is the hollow where the light should be, but the light doesn't even know it exists yet. Nothing knows, nothing exists, and the absence is swallowed over and over by itself.

The first idea that the universe ever has is death.

The second is light. 

So, "Let there be light!" says God, or somebody, or nobody, but it echoes through the expanse of existence which does not yet exist and brings it into being. The light goes on, the light goes off, flickering in and out, learning the ways of creation and destruction, teaching itself life and death.

And the world grew out of this cycle, this whirring back and forth, planets swirling, stars catching fire, heavens coasting over hells and realities stacking on top of one another, and inside of each other, small doors to big worlds burrowing into silent places, expanding and contracting against one another without ever changing in size. 

The world learned about breath, about water, about stone and bone and meteor showers, about liquids and gases and solids, about dark, undetectable fleshy parts that hide even from God's - or somebody's, or nobody's - pronouncements. It learned to crawl, and walk, and run, and build with its hands. It learned fire, and trees, and salty sea air, and airless vacuums in the depths of space. It learned flight and learned purgatory, morality and chaos, laughter and time, age and beauty and fear and kindness and sleep.

It learned all of these things, and more, but it never forgot death.

 

\---

  

"Where did you learn this story, your Majesty, if I may ask?" 

"Oh, I think I dreamed it."

"Is it true?"

"I know it to be true, but maybe I dreamed that knowledge also."

"Have you ever asked the Upstairsmen about it?"

"No, no, I've never thought to. There's an idea, though, Midora. But they don't seem to come around anymore, do they?"

"No, they don't."

"Would you like to hear the rest of the story?"

"I don't suppose I have a choice, do I, Majesty?"

"I don't suppose you do." 

 

\---

 

Before men killed with rocks and knives and their bare hands, they killed with _death_. It was not an airy concept, but a solid object, a whirring darkness that could be contorted and directed at will. It had existed always within the void of _before_ , and remained still in the now of _after._ Neanderthals and animals and the quivering dark shapes that wade in the shadows all warred against one another with this weapon, each breaking off a piece of it for themselves and honing it to its sharpest, most formidable point. They fought, they died, they fucked and propagated and grew and fought more. Death was bred into them with life.

But soon the light began to overhaul this violence, revealing patterns and giving shape to the world, allowing things awareness. When humans began to know themselves, they forgot about death in its purest form, and began building tools to prod at it from afar, leading it like a dog on a leash, rather than a pulsing, growling part of them. And in this separation the dark shapes were drowned out, herded by the shapes of light into tiny corners of existence, though given free reign throughout their own territory.

Humanity learned to ponder itself and the shadows learned to slip in, gentle and caressing, offering the ease of pure death. No violence, no blood, just an end. The humans who were lucky, or unlucky, enough to happen upon these leavings of a time past were entranced by them, became mired as they had once been in the luxury of death's empty dark, and found it inescapable. Their fragile minds had only just learned love, and were cowed by it, and the introduction of such gentle dissipation was too foreign, a contrast to their clamoring, self-obsessed emotions.

They used death all wrong.

They used it to _kill_ rather than to _end,_ but the universe did not reject this action, because the choice to do this shaped it into being, made it a viable option. Made it part of the world again, if in thin, uneven stripes. 

First it came as an animal, then a tree branch, a strange stone, a bronze tool, iron, steel, glass, gold, music and poetry, the written word. As humanity shifted and changed, death changed with it, shifting form to best fit in with the current reality. Thousands of years passed before it reached its latest form, a neat, indistinguishable thing. A black slip, with pages and pages and never-ending pages, opened and tuned to the written mind of today's society. 

A speck of black wading into the bright day.

And God, or somebody, or nobody, said again, "Let there be light," and there was light.

 

\---

 

"Oh, I think I know this story, Majesty," Midora says, lounging heavily at the edges of the King's overhanging shadow.

The King frowns, brow clenched in aged dissatisfaction, like an old man puzzling over his surroundings, wondering how in the world he'd gotten where he was. "You couldn't possibly," he pronounces, to the wide and empty room. Midora is the only one of his subjects who is here. Midora is the only one who ever comes anymore. "It's a very old and royal story, and it's mine, and you don't know it. You're mistaken."

"Of course, your Majesty," Midora says slimly, but she thinks she has dreamed this same dream. She thinks maybe she is dreaming now. 

This realm has been heavy with the haze of sleeplessness for a long time now, so long that time has turned over and lost itself, and they are floating, hollow, in both the _then_ and the _now_. Maybe the story sounds familiar because she has lived it, is living it.

She rolls onto her back, staring up at the broken dome of the ceiling, the darkness slipping in to mingle with the gold light. "Do you tire of me, Majesty?" she asks after long, stretching moments of silence.

"I tire of everything, Midora," the King says heavily, breathing a long sigh out with the words.

She had been looking for a dismissal, not a tragedy, but she rolls her eyes and sits up, balancing her heavy chin on one thin hand. "Age and power will do that, I hear."

The King shakes, his whole body moving with his head, and he may be indicating the negative, but he looks more like he's having a bodily spasm. She's used to this, though. It used to be sad, and before that it had been funny, and now it is just routine.

"No, no," the King says, "I don't mind the quiet, nor the emptiness. It's the whistling, the whirring that I can't stand. I wish it would stop. I can't sleep with this terrible clamor going on." He shuts his eyes, the corners crinkling with pressure, and if Midora hadn't unlearned pity, she might be feeling it for him now.

"Clamor?" she says, head tilting to the side, and the whole room rocking with it. It's like a dreamscape, this place, too bright and indistinct, and maybe that's why the others had ceased attending. Maybe that's why she always comes back. "I don't hear anything, Majesty." 

His eyes open, face contorting with surprise, but it glosses over with weariness soon enough. "No, you wouldn't," he says airily, "even such a violent noise is too far away for your ears. I wonder if they can hear it on earth, though. Do you think they can? I don't imagine they can escape it at such close range." 

Midora straightens as well as she can, curved little body trying to right itself, and she says, "What's making the noise, Majesty? Do you know?" 

"Of course," the King says, puffing himself up, evidently insulted by the implication that he might not. "What sort of King do you imagine me to be? It's an Abomination, of course." 

Midora tilts her head to the side. She doesn't know what that means. She says, "I don't know what that means."

"No," the King says, "you wouldn't." And then he closes his eyes and begins humming. She thinks, perhaps, just to drown out the noise.

 

\---

 

L spends several minutes resisting the urge to, and another couple denying the reality that he is dry heaving over the dashboard. His throat feels all washed out, his body sticky and gelatinous from the highs and lows, sweating and shaking with chills. Despite his general unflappability, he has been sick before and he knows what it feels like, but that doesn't make it an easy reality to confront.

When it rains, it pours, he supposes.

Or maybe it'd been pouring all along and he'd just been hiding out from it.

There is a large, disturbingly gentle hand on his back, stroking in soft circles and digging lightly into relieving pressure points, and a part of him wants to take the low easy dirty road, just run away laughing with the devil. Fly B and himself to some far off tropical island that has palm trees and hula girls that don't speak any language he knows, fruity alcoholic drinks, all the trappings of the decadent escape of the wealthy and the powerful.

He is both of those things but he's never put himself in the same category as the rest of them. He's like Light in that way. Maybe he's like Light in a lot of ways. Maybe he's like B in a lot ways, too. Maybe that's why he's trying to throw up now - though without much success.

"When's the last time you ate?" B asks, lowly, comfortingly, a dull and loving condescension that he luxuriates in. It makes L feel warm and not in the nice ways. Are there any nice ways?

"Get off me," he says, shrugging B's hand off and losing the only bodily warmth he's got with it.

B makes a clicking noise with his tongue and L can see his expression without looking at him. "Touchy, touchy," he remarks silkily. "Just because you sold your boyfriend up the river doesn't mean you've gotten rid of me, too. He was just soups and salads. I'm the main course."

"Please don't compare yourself to food, or I'll have the urge to be sick again."

B pulls the lever and slides back in his chair, stretching out lazily, like they're sunning on a beach in Ibiza and not sitting curbside in a stolen car trying to maintain consciousness. Well, maybe the last part is just L. 

"I think I'm sort of a roast beef," B says, "or a lamb chop. Something heavy and chewy that you have to kill to eat. Something that bleeds a lot." He draws a finger down L's shoulder and it's slinky and rough and the opposite of comforting. If L could manage to vomit he'd do it on him just to make a point. 

"Please," he laughs, hoarse and empty, looking up abruptly and getting a head-rush that he tries to blink away, "you're a fruit tart, all the way." Sticky sweet and pretty, but ultimately nauseating and far too rich. Thinking about it makes him sick. Everything makes him sick right now.

B leans over on the edge of his seat, fluttering his eyelashes like a schoolgirl. "Alright, vanilla wafer."

L _humphs_ and lets his eyes fall closed. "Most people would say dead fish." 

"Most people haven't fucked you."

"Are we talking general population or criminal population, because if it's the latter, I'd have to contest - "

"Oh please, L," B snaps, grabbing him roughly by the jaw in a way that one probably shouldn't handle an ill person. "You're playing it so tough nowadays, all dressed up in Grandpa's clothes, seen and done all the dirty things, but I remember you sporting the same sort of ugly pretty waste at age 12, and 15, on and on, and it hasn't gotten anymore creditable, just more well-rehearsed."

L's quivering a little bit under his touch and he's not sure if the two things are mutually exclusive or not but he hates himself slightly for it anyway. "You don't believe me?" he says, managing to sound indignant even through a scratchy whisper.

B leans in close, breathes all over him. "I'm sure you've touched a few people in their nasty places, but all the flashy promiscuity? Don't all the amateur psychologists say sexual deviance most often comes from sexual trauma?"

"Well, as the traumatizer," L spits, feeling loose and uppity and angry without any energy to fuel it, "I suppose you would know."

B doesn't react like L would like him to, doesn't clam up or bat off the accusations, doesn't victim-blame or steep himself in hypocrisy like a textbook rapist. That would make everything easier. If B was anything like that they wouldn't even be having this conversation. He smiles thin and self-deprecating, and whispers, "I'm your monster," softly and pleadingly in L's ear, and L is dizzy and lightheaded and starving and nauseous at once and he threads his fingers into B's hair and shoves their lips together and kisses harder than he needs or even has the physical ability to.

Glutton for punishment, as always, but as L thinks it he isn't even sure which of them he's referring to.

B grabs him back, pulls him closer, tugs him in like a whirlpool with grabby hands and stiff fingers and this is the true romance that he grew up on, this is the thing that made him sick - or one of the things, because in retrospect, Qullish's little experiment in socialization, while good for international politics, probably wasn't ideal for child development. Such is life. Everyone has fucked up childhoods. Even Light Yagami, in his way.

B sinks his teeth into L's lip, clawing him across the car and into his lap, and gives him a reason to forget about Light Yagami - huddled and indignant in an interrogation room or a holding cell as he must be by now - and to remember the rain-wet mornings of his boyhood and the tiny hands that tore him apart and stitched him back together.

B is hard against him and L is not, doesn't seem to have the bodily energy to get it up, but he's not doing it for the pleasure so much as the sustenance, the disgrace and the madness, the feeling of being drenched and swallowed, overtaken and loved - or a dodgy, dark estimation of it - by something.

"You're the knight," B breathes, pulling back minutely to whisper ragged against his jaw, "and I'm your dragon. You're the hero and I'm your villain, right? Right?"

"Stop talking," L says, hooking a hand around his jaw and pulling him back in a messy kiss, the scratch of something that might be stubble - his own or B's, he can't tell - lips wet and cool at the seams, sticking together and pulling apart, rhythmic and sickening. The whole world does a somersault, and when it tries to right itself, overbalances into the window glass. 

The light bump on his skull is nothing to the head rush, to the liquidity of his limbs, and B holds him up at the ribcage, like a prom date.

"I might throw up on you," L says, blinking his eyes open hazily.

B shrugs his expression without moving his shoulders, grin fond and tortured at once. "You could do worse."

Isn't that the truth? L feels ridiculous as much as he does sick, a grown man straddling the lap of another grown man in the front seat of a stolen vehicle. This stuff is alright for the teen years, maybe even at 22, but by his age and with his bank balance, he should at least be fooling around in a nicer car. With a nicer man. 

Where have all the good men gone? Ah yes, away in a police car to pay their dues. There's no such thing as a good man. There's no such thing as good. There's no such thing as anything. L can't tell if his sudden metaphysical issues have been brought on because of his complex emotional circumstances or because everything is spinning.

He leans in to kiss Beyond again, sighing into it for lack of anything more substantial to grab onto, but he's quite firmly and unexpectedly rebuffed. 

"Hold on there, cowboy," B says, tugging him back by the scruff of his neck. "Contrary to what one might think, I actually prefer my sexual partners alive, and you look like you've passed death's door to have drinks in its living room." He strokes L's hair, hands mollifying and sharp, and cool like the air around them. "So, how about we pack it up, try to find a decent cheeseburger somewhere, and I can fuck you in the waiting room on our way to visit god in his holding cell." 

L freezes up. He's sure he's been rejected by B before, but never physically and never for his own sake rather than as a part of one of the torturous games Beyond has always played with L and with himself in equal measure. L hasn't got much pride - or else he does, and it twists itself in strange, hypocritical shapes to make way for the indignities of his existence - but the way he's held back makes him dizzy with self-loathing.

B has always attacked him, so for him to volunteer protection must mean that L's weakness is violently apparent.

He slumps sideways against the driver's door, hand searching bumpily for the catch of the lock. "Let go of me."

B's chuckle is hard and bright and it hurts his eardrums. "I'm the only thing holding you up. I'm your protection against gravity, beauty queen, so unless you're dearly missing your old friend, the floor, you might wanna take the hand up I'm offering." His fingers stroke placatingly against L's hipbone as he speaks. What a tool.

"I don't," L says, and finds the handle, pulling it open with a few rough jerks and an uneasy shove.

He's out of B's lap quickly, losing the contact between their bodies and gaining his breath with the separation. The sidewalk is cold on his bare feet and the sensation levels him. The world still rocks from side to side but he follows it instead of resisting, and if he's walking away from the car in a zig-zagging path then at least it's _away_.

"Yes, yes, point made," B calls after him, still laughing but there's an edge of his voice like the fleeting beginnings of worry. "You're strong and independent and you don't need no man, okay, but you do need a cane or something, unless you just like slanting diagonally for the view."

"I'm fine," L insists, and wants to laugh too, and would if he weren't so indignantly nauseous.

"You've never been fine in your whole life," B says, and L hears a door slam and knows he's being followed. 

It makes him speed up, but that makes everything go jagged, reality cracking into wispy pieces around him, head fizzing like an old car radio, the voices from people he's met, conversations he's had, dreams he's dreamed all spinning his head in a whirlpool of noise and sensation, white and black spots drifting in and out of his vision, a bright sharp emptiness filling him up, getting louder and louder and harder to hold onto.

He doesn't remember falling down, didn't feel himself collide with the ground, doesn't even remember at first where he is or what he's doing - could be waking up in the morning, could be on the floor by the air conditioner, or in the hidden bedroom he was locked up in, or one of the many hotel sofas of his past - and as B's face swims into his vision he thinks at first he's looking at his own reflection. Then he remembers, hard and fast, like an abrupt drop into the deep end, suddenly submerged in memory and emotion.

"I'm fine," he says, or tries to, throat parched, body drenched in cold sweat, stomach rolling, feeling half-dead and incapable of movement. He wants to close his eyes and just sleep here, wherever they are, whoever's around. He wants B to sleep with him. Just lay with him on the hard ground, like they'd done on the hill, like they'd done in so many darkened rooms.

"I know you are," B says with a small, infected smile, and L registers distantly shortly before he drops out of consciousness that it's a bald-faced lie.

 

\---

 

The lamp in the room is too bright. Nobody asks him any questions, but they bring him some water and miso for a thin breakfast and watch him closely, all with their helmets on. Light doesn't think he's seen a face in hours. He falls asleep twice, and wakes up handcuffed to a chair both times, cheek pressed to the cool metal of the table, neck bent at an awkward angle, more exhausted every time.

He dreams he's awake, that they sentence him to death, but the execution chamber is his old high school and the electric chair is his old desk, and all the other students are standing around watching and pointing fingers. He dreams he is a small child lost at a street festival, his parents disappearing into the hectic, laughing crowd, the jovial music blurring to a rush in his ears, while two twin L's with matching grins do strange performance art on stage. He dreams of Misa, naked and pale and leading him through a house that he's never seen before, but recognizes as a place where they have grown old together, and one they will die in.

Everything smells like burnt coffee and the rot of the alley where she'd lost her memories. He dreams that Shinigami are not real, that he'd dreamed them, and the monotonous emptiness of his life previous to the Death Note is the true reality. He dreams that L is made up, that he is begging at someone's feet - Aiber's, maybe - to make him real, _please make him real_ , while the investigation team looks on from the audience and ranks his performance out of 10. Ide gives him a 3. 

His mouth tastes like a carpet when someone comes into the interrogation room and he wakes abruptly, sitting up and arranging himself as if he'd been waiting, bored and uninterested, all along.

He gets a vague sense that he should suspect that this is a dream, but he doesn't, even as his father stands in front of him, red-faced and breathing heavily, as if he'd run all the way to this room, this moment, without stopping. He looks at Light and Light looks at him and there's a strange instance of recognition, and possibly remembrance. He thinks maybe he'd forgotten his family in the last twenty four hours, forgotten himself. He'd just been a torrent of emotion, movement and reaction, scrambling exhaustion and fear. 

"They told me to wear a helmet," his father says, his breaths slowing down.

Light blinks at him. "You didn't."

His father frowns at him. "Of course not," he says. He moves forward, stops with his hands on the back of the chair opposite Light, then pulls it out with a sudden jolt and sits. "What happened, Light?"

Brushing his hair out of his eyes, Light doesn't have to put in much effort to make himself look pitiable. "I was going to ask you that."

"They won't tell me," Soichiro says. "Orders from higher up, but nobody knows quite who. They say it's about the Kira investigation, but they're not charging you with anything. They're not even making accusations, they're just holding you here until they're told otherwise. It's - it's mindless, unjust, - "

"It's the system, Dad," Light says, even though he agrees. The fallibility of the law is the reason he'd started all of this in the first place.

His father is shaking his head. "But these men, my colleagues, they know you, Light. You grew up with them. I expected this kind of thing from L, but - " He stops, mouth quivering, then falling shut. Maybe he understands more than Light gives him credit for.

Light taps his fingers in an uneven tempo across the metal tabletop. He hates this room and his head is muggy and he spikes at once from cool sobriety to hysterical amusement. He wants to go home, he wants a bed to sleep in and someone to cook him breakfast. He wants the dead and the guilty to stop their screaming in his head. He looks up from under his eyelashes and if he's supposed to be selling innocence he might be falling down on the job.

He says, "You don't honestly think this could have been anyone else, do you?"

"Light," Soichiro starts.

"I saw him." That cuts him off right good. Light closes his eyes and the blacks and whites of L's figure are branded against the greys of the city in his mind's eyes, planted like a flag on a hilltop, a marker on a grave. "Across the street." 

"Light, don't - "

"Why would I lie about this, Dad?" He thinks the real question that needs to be asked is why is he telling the truth? Maybe because it feels like the only thing left to do. The gauntlet has been thrown down and he's not going to shy away from the fight that calls him, even if he's struggling slightly to keep himself upright. 

His father rubs at his unshaven chin, looking uncomfortable and unduly aged. "I didn't say you were lying. The stress, the panic, it can cause hallucinations, things like that." He closes his eyes and breathes in. "They said you were hysterical, screaming and struggling." He's looking at Light like wants to be told that it's not true, that someone had their information wrong, had gotten him confused with some other boy who's up for mass murder. 

Light is disgusted but he's not sure who with. "You get pulled into a car by a dozen men in uniform without warning or explanation and you tell me how well you bear it."

Soichiro looks down. "That's fair." He studies his hands, and Light does, too, tracing the veins, lines worn thick with repeated action. There's a vague part of him that feels sorry for his father, for his misguided fears and his high, high hopes. He is a good man in a bad world, and he runs with the tide because that's all people like him can do. He deserves better. Light is changing the world for people like him, but he would never understand that. 

At this point, he's not even sure he understands, either. There's too much in his head for principles and moral dilemmas. There is only his quest, the blood in him squirming around, the ragged images in his head of L naked, L grinning, L afraid and pretending not to be. L across the street, watching him in his despair. It's too much L, really, it makes him sick.

"Light," his father says, sighing and leaning back in his chair, posture loose and exhausted, abandoning his high-strung energy for the moment, "why does this keep happening?"

His eyes are watery and dark behind his glasses. Light remembers him when he'd been younger, more alive, a buoyant officer with a spring in is step and ill-fitting suits that Light had dug his fingers into the fabric of. _Daddy's home, Daddy's home!_ The joy and the comfort, always slightly distant, and now a world away. He remembers when he'd wanted to make his father proud. He remembers achieving as much before his 10th birthday, then moving onto subsequent prospects without a glance back.

"I don't know," he says, and it's such a thin lie and he's almost disappointed when his father doesn't object to it, just sighs long and emptying and emptied, and closes his eyes with a thin, forgiving smile.

 

\---

 

"Light's not Kira," Matsuda says, fingers tapping against the plastic top of his styrofoam coffee cup, looking around at all of them imploringly.

The brew is shit, tastes burnt, and Shuichi winces as he swallows it. He'd forgotten how much he hates waiting room coffee. He'd forgotten how much he hates waiting. The chief has been inside for longer than he'd anticipated, and he's starting to get itchy.

"Of course," Ide's saying, eyeing his watch.

Mogi grunts from his chair and Shuichi feels prompting eyes on him, and forces out a grim, "Right," and a tight, thoroughly unconvincing smile.

The leather soles of Aiber's shoes click loudly as he sways back and forth across the tiled floors. He's intoxicated again, but Shuichi can't even tell when he'd had the time to get himself that way. "I bet you," he starts, stumbling slightly over the gold tassels on his shoes, "wait - how much is 20,000 yen?"

"More than you probably have on you," Ide says with a keen mix of amusement and distaste, and a healthy dollop of nervous energy. 

"I bet you," Aiber revises, a hazy grin on his face, "whatever I have on me that he _is_ Kira, and that you'll have undeniable proof of that within the week." 

The heater whirs at the side of the room, low and even, a rhythm one could fall asleep to. It's too early for this, but then there would never be a good time to play through this tired scene again. Don't they already know how this ends? Or maybe they don't know anything at all, and never will, and this is just another exercise in incapability.

"I'll take you up on that bet," Matsuda says effusively, sitting up straight, spilling a bit of coffee on his starched white sleeve.

"Gambling's illegal, Touta," Shuichi tells him idly, and lets his eyes fall closed. The day is already long and it's barely noon.

 

\---

 

The Tokyo sewers remind Rem in many ways of the Shinigami Realm. In particular, there is an ancient and deserted castle in the depths of the Blue Mountains which had belonged to one of the lords of the Old Times and now belongs to no one, only sits silently, frozen in the cold spaces of the present and buried under the dirt and grime so native to their current reality. The place smells of rot, the walls caved in, halls dilapidated, vaulted ceilings fallen away to reveal the deep dark sky peeking in. She had played there - as much as any Shinigami can play - when she had been a few hundred years younger.

The rot in the Tokyo sewers is not human, not flora or fauna, not anything of this earth, and that of all reasons is why she knows she is on the right track. She worries endlessly about Misa, small and swamped in loneliness, or else with Light and undergoing his abuse, but she's doing this _for her_. Whoever is doing this is after pretty little girls and boys, and while Misa is well past the age limit, she is the same kind of victim. Men with knives and men with Notebooks and men with cameras, they're all bit players when it comes to miraculous evil, and Rem can protect Misa from them without much trouble; but this is something else.

Something citric and foaming with disease, laughing and sobbing and bleeding its unreal madness everywhere. The air down here smells like fractured reality and Rem knows that their Shinigami criminal - if it is even that - is what has made it this way.

There are shadows twisting behind her, the darkness learning new ways to move around her bright body, and suddenly she smells it sharp, and it doesn't smell at all like her home anymore. Following the sloping lines of the tunnel system, she isn't overly surprised to find the bodies. A boy and a girl of a similar age, lying next to each other, naked and soundless as sleep. Rem knows they are not sleeping. Misa tosses and turns, laughing and whimpering with her terrible, wonderful dreams. The children are silent. 

"Where are you?" she says to the dark behind them, and receives no response but an echoing quiet.

Wherever the thing who did this is now, it's not here. She sighs at the bodies, tamping down on any feeling they might bring about. Death is bred into her, part of her very being, but the human world has distorted the purity of it, making it an ugly thing. Her long exposure to their evils and their goods and their hate and their fear and their aching love has twisted her. She feels almost scared, almost sorry, _almost_. But Misa is the claimant of most all of her human feeling, and she funnels it all in that direction.

Her worry spikes and she turns to leave. There's nothing else for her here. She'll tell Light Yagami what she's found and leave it to him to figure out the finer points of getting his team of small men to the bodies. She's done her job.

She's about to go when she feels the pull, the presence overtaking her, and she knows in that moment that there is another Shinigami in these sewers, and it is coming straight towards her, full speed ahead. She turns rapidly, ready to funnel all of the spiraling energy swirling inside of her into a fierce defense, when she hears a very familiar, very annoying laugh.

"Man," Ryuk says, swinging backwards, head arched back to stare at her upside-down, like a trapeze artist, "have I been looking everywhere for you!"

 

\--- 

 

They're posed like a bride and groom on their honeymoon, except the bride is unconscious and the groom has a brown take-away bag under his arm.

"Mission success?" Wedy asks, brow raised, eyes tired, and B walks in and sets L down on the nest of ratty blankets that Mello had only recently vacated, after a short and traumatic nap.

L is pale as always, but his skin is shiny and grayish, hair wet with sweat. He doesn't ever look like he's in good health, but at this point he should probably be in bed, rather than wrapped in a few measly sheets on the ground. Mello can attest to the healing properties of such a resting place, which are precisely: none. 

"Depends what mission you mean," B says, tucking him in like a fussy nanny, hands so gentle and exacting that it's hard to watch. "God, Jr.'s been corralled for the time being, his good-time girl, too, and the captain of this armada is sure to make a stirring appearance just as soon as he gets all - or any - of his faculties back." He strokes L's hair and Mello really wishes he wouldn't. Not in front of them like that.

Even if it's not supposed to be a secret, it should at least be _private_.

"Is he gonna be okay?" Mello asks, testing the waters of worry to see how comfortable he finds them. He's not sure if it's more advisable to hold onto his earlier anger, a shield to protect him from whatever is happening here and whatever is going to happen, but he can't quite help it. Sick and helpless, L seems like a far more pitiable character than an unforgivable one.

B grins, letting up his touch to sway his way over to them, handing out burgers and fries and lukewarm coffees from some off-brand Americana fast food joint. "I've never known him to be that, but either way, he'll be up and running in no time, even against the doctor's orders."

Mello takes a few ravenous bites of his burger. For all he knows it could be disgusting, but sustenance is sustenance and for the purposes of survival it tastes like heaven. Around an ill-mannered mouthful, he mumbles, "I'm guessing you're the doctor?" with not half the disparagement that he's intending. He swallows thickly. "That doesn't seem safe."

"Don't worry, sport," B says, ruffling Mello's hair like a favored pet, "we've played plenty of times before." 

Wedy snorts indelicately and there's enough connotation there for Mello to not want to fully examine the remark, so he just shrugs out of B's reach and makes himself a picnic on the ground, cross-legged and shoveling fries into his mouth.

"Anyone have a pen and paper?" B says, switching quickly onto the next topic, pale mouth worrying his fingertips, at the same time as Wedy pushes herself off the wall and asks, "So, he really did it?" with an unreadable glance towards L.

No," Wedy says, as B chirps, "Yes, Ma'am," both responding to the other's questions at once, and from the floor Mello rolls his eyes and digs into his pocket.

"Syd gave me a permanent marker," he says, holding it out, and B glides over and snatches it up faster than he can process, looks around for a bit of paper, and coming up empty, pulls back the sleeve of his shirt - a shirt he was definitely not wearing last night - and starts a bullet-point list on the skin of his arm. 

"Toilet paper, toothpaste, what else?" he asks, casually, as if they're a suburban family that does this every week.

"A shower," Mello says dispassionately, chugging down his coffee black even though the taste makes him wince.

Wedy slants over on her small, bare feet - heels abandoned at the edge of the room, along with his jacket and belt - to stand over them. "What did L's team think of this? They're really letting him point the finger at Yagami again? Tenth time's the charm, or something?"

"I wouldn't know," B says with an overly pronounced wink, scribbling something else on his arm, then turning back to face Mello. "I can rig the waterline before I go out, get the baths working. Maybe some electricity, too, if you're all good girls and boys." 

"Thanks ever so," Wedy says with an eye roll, but she doesn't seem half so afraid as she probably should be of a man who has tortured and beaten her. After a moment of thought, she adds, "Shampoo and conditioner. And soap if there's none here. Deodorant and a razor, too, and - "

"I'm running out of arm here, princess."

"Maybe you should have thought of that before you made me leave most of my luggage in London."

"Uh," Mello puts in, feeling left out of their back and forth, as usual, "shouldn't we get something for L?"

"Like a sugar cube?" B asks dreamily, palm cupping his chin as he glances over at L's sickly form.

"Like medicine." Mello sips his coffee again, the bite of caffeine making him bolder. "Or, like, a real doctor?"

Beyond caps the pen, falling back dramatically on his elbows, body spreading in the large room, his long limbs and eerie shadows taking over the space like something daunting. A horror movie monster. He laughs and he sounds happy and only very vaguely malevolent. "If we're going into kidnapping, I'm going to need more than just an arm."

"Can't we come with you?" Mello asks. "We're free to go where we want now, right?"

B scratches under his chin. "That is what I said, isn't it?" He shrugs. "Sure thing, we can make an outing of it, but somebody needs to stay home and watch Daddy."

"Please stop calling him that," Wedy says languidly, sipping her coffee like it's out of a china cup and they're having this conversation around a mile-long dining room table. "I'll stay if the kid can't stand to be cooped up in here any longer, as long as he pinkie promises he won't forget a thing on my list." She glances sideways at Mello, a small smile quirking her lips with a fondness that he doesn't understand, but feels reflected in himself. 

He is not afraid of her anymore. She is comfortable. She is known. It's good, he thinks, to finally know something.

So, he chimes in quickly with, "I'll stay behind. It's not like I want much and, well, I figure I owe you one." He looks up through his eyelashes at her, the way he's watched her do - to the men in their airport security uniforms, to Syd while he'd shivered next to her, even to B once or twice. The windows in the room are all covered but one, and only thin cracks of light make it in, but one falls straight across Wedy's face, and he can see the conspiratorial jump of her eyes clearly

"For the torture," she asks, straight-up, not pulling any punches, "or for not listening to me when I gave you some damn good advice?" 

Mello had been thinking off the latter, of the way he'd shrugged her off back in the car, and it had ended with her ruining one very expensive looking shoe to come in and save their asses. The torture had slipped his mind for the moment. He feels guilty for even a second of negligence. He's resigned himself to his immoral means, but he cannot forget, not ever, or it devalues any suffering that he's caused or allowed to happen, and he doesn't want to be like that.

He looks at B, who's spread himself out enough to cross through several patches of light, and then to L, who is curled up in the cool shadows at the edges of the room. He wonders if they're like that, if they remember, or if they operate oppositely, and one does and the other doesn't. He wonders which one is which.

He takes a long gulp of his coffee. "Mostly," he says, "I just want to stay here." 

Wedy shrugs, accepting that as easily as she seems to the rest of the world, already resigned to any chaos and calamity that might occur. B laughs, pushing himself up and turning his glinting grin on Mello like a spotlight.

"A sudden desire to play guard dog?" he asks Mello slyly. "I know how that goes, baby boy." 

He winks, and Mello really doesn't think that he understands, but he doesn't want more condescending pet names thrown at him, so he doesn't say that, just watches Wedy and Beyond shift in and out of the stripes of sunlight as they get ready to go, and finishes his cheeseburger.

 

\---

 

Kiyomi gets dressed for the first time in days. She showers, blow-dries her hair, and paints her face in glossy make-up. She cleans up around the apartment, washes old dishes, sweeps. She finds a small scrap of paper where Misa Amane had been standing when they'd come in to take her away, laying on the floor like a marker, sticking out dull white on the wine red carpeting. A part of her wants to keep it as a sort of memento, an item important to whatever the hell it is that's going on, but Teru catches her staring at it in her open palm, and she hurriedly throws it away, brushing off any meaning it might hold for the sake of appearance.

She'd tried to get him to go home. He'd even left for an hour or so, but he'd ended up on her doorstep again with an armful of legal documents that needed examination and correction, a frail kindness in his eyes.

"I worried you might not be alright," he'd said.

"I'm alright," she'd replied, but she'd let him in anyway. She's known herself to be cruel, but not unduly, and he'd looked so small and pathetic on her doorstep with his life's work, eyes bloodshot, begging for entrance. 

She's considered that he might be in love with her, and that she maybe ought to be in love with him, but she's seen boys and men alike in the thrall of romance, staring at her adoringly, and he does not look like them. She appreciates that about him. He is strained and fragile and maybe couldn't be in love if he tried, which is good as far as it's the last thing that she needs.

"Coffee?" she offers, when he's all set up at her kitchen table with his files spread out and his hair in a careless ponytail. "We have milk now."

It's supposed to be a joke but she thinks maybe it hits more like a barb. They haven't talked about Light or Misa since it happened, haven't combined their mutual knowledge of the mysteries surrounding the Yagami name, or the monster with red eyes, or the overhanging presence of the detective known as L. But they will. They need to, or she's going to lose her breath again, and curl up back in her dressing gown with a bottle of vodka and days to lose. 

But she'll let him get some work done beforehand. She's knows how to be kind, sometimes.

 

\---

 

 _Jusco_ is large and fluorescent and the first thing Beyond does when he gets a cart is ride it around like a bumper car, laughing as a five-year-old would and steering around the sharp turns with the carelessness of someone even younger. Wedy supposes that you unlearn cautiousness once you realize that you can't die. Or maybe he can, maybe there's some secret code to be punched in, or point to be pressed, and he'll fold as easily as any of them.

Maybe before she would have enjoyed figuring it out, destroying him and watching him flutter and fall the way he'd made her do more than once. Now, while the satisfaction would still be applicable, the loss of his wild, heartless, lovelorn presence would send the situation as it stands all aflutter. He's a shithead, but he's the operator of this machine they're all strapped into and if he goes down all the gears stand to stall, the house of cards collapsing - pick your favorite metaphor, they all spell bad news.

"About L," Wedy begins, when they're in the feminine hygiene aisle, ambling past row upon never-ending row of tampons. She doesn't turn it into a question, just lets it hang. 

"What about him?" B says over his shoulder, tongue clicking impatiently as they roll along slowly to the offbeat rhythm of one squeaking cart wheel. "I'd reckon you'd know most anything better than I would, given the timeline of your acquaintance versus mine. I should be asking you things."

Wedy shrugs, steering them toward the deodorant. "Shoot." 

He grins and points an embarrassing finger-gun at her. "Don't tempt me, Barbie."

She cocks her eyebrow but the action feels almost impotent in opposition to his tyrannical offhandedness. "I'm sure I always tempt you, _Ken._ "

"Tell me about the first time you met him?" he asks, almost coyly, like it would be a real favor for her to oblige. He's watching her pick out deodorant with big lonely nighttime eyes, the same way he's been doing for the whole shopping trip - not participating, just giving directions and then observing studiously as she carries them out. This just feels like another in a long line of requests.

She says, "What about it? It wasn't very eventful. He called me up when I was in police custody, offered me a bargain, and had me out of there in under twelve hours. He had the voice modulator on and sounded like a tool and I figured he probably couldn't do a thing for me, but that it was worth a shot. Turns out I was right." She shrugs, sloughing the whole of it off as a dim remnant of a far away time, a far away girl who thought she was smarter than she ended up being.

B shakes his head as they turn into the next aisle. "No, no, that's cardboard. I mean when you really met him. I don't care about your acquaintance with _the detective L_ ," he says, pronouncing the title with a hoity-toity lilt and a roll of his eyes, "I wanna know when you met the scraggly little man who houses the brain that launched a thousand ships. What did you think of him? What did you feel? I want all the lurid details." He sounds like he wants to live vicariously through her experience.

That's tougher to think of. The scandal in Prague had not been the most enjoyable period of her life, and had in fact made her recent sojourn with Beyond and company look like a carefree jaunt with a couple of dear pals. She had known the word hunger and she could've used it in a sentence, but in Prague she'd truly learned it and it had learned her, wrapping up around her like a quiet, aching friend and seeing her off into dark places. She'd fucked the case up. She'd really fucked it up and she'd suffered for her mistakes. She'd assumed her far-removed benefactor had given her up for dead, and then he'd wandered in, as if by accident, in a Czech military uniform, and pulled her into a car. The building had burned behind them as they'd driven away and, after the fact, in his hotel room in London, he'd told her the fire had been started by a gas leak and she'd chosen to believe him not because he was overly convincing, but because it had been easier to stomach than the truth.

"I didn't know that he was L at the time," she tells him, turning towards the shelves like she's looking for something important, even though there's nothing in this aisle but baby formula and condoms. "I just thought he was another field operative, like me, sent in to clean up the mess I'd made of the case L had me on." 

"And did he?" Beyond asks, flicking at a packet that says, _'Ribbed for her pleasure!'_ in excitable yellow kanji. "Clean it up?" 

"Burned it down, more like."

She walks in smooth steps down the bright white linoleum rows, stepping on the cracks, breaking her mother's back. Beyond follows easily, seeming to travel without moving his legs, a specter caught in a rare moment of well-lit solidity. 

Wedy's voice is flat when she speaks. "He came to visit me in the hospital a few times, afterwards. Didn't bring flowers or cards or anything, or even tell me to get well soon. I'd just wake up sometimes and he'd be there, and he'd start talking to me about some article he'd read in a science journal, or some gruesome bit of international news. If he'd been slightly nicer I would have assumed he'd had a crush on me or something, but he wasn't and I didn't. Eventually I got used to it, to him, and even though I thought he was off-putting and somewhat annoying, I started to enjoy the company. Then he disappeared one day after a couple of weeks of this, with no warning or tact, and I was angry at him, and then I mostly forgot about him, and then when I was well enough to start doing jobs for L again, I finally realized from my employer's sharp shift in demeanor towards me that he'd been the man who'd pulled me out of a mob prison in the Czech Republic."

They've moved into the frozen foods section by now and Wedy's not even sure if they want anything from here, but the flow of her narration had been dependent on her track straight ahead, without any interruptions.

"And is that when you slept with him?" B asks with minimal interest, as if they're talking about someone he doesn't know and doesn't care to. 

"No," Wedy says stolidly, "that was later on." She doesn't elaborate. Before he can shake her down for details the way she knows he's probably aching to do, she aims to get there first. "What about you? What was your first meeting with L like?" 

B stops abruptly, turning on his heel and tilting his head at her. The bustle of the enormous store seems to freeze with him, quieting to a distant murmur, and she can't tell if it's the embellishment of perception doing it or if he really does have ridiculous magic powers. He says, without the usually airy, nasal flair to his voice, "If you walk in halfway through surgery, it looks like murder."

Wedy frowns. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It's an expression," B says.

"I know it's an expression. So what?"

"So," Beyond tells her, turning back around to continue on with their experiment in domesticity, "I walked in halfway through surgery the day that I met him. And the surgery is still going on." His voice gets dimmer as he gets further away, the rest of the world bleeding back into focus around him. "And it still looks like murder."

 

\---

 

He is dreaming and then he is not, but the disconnect into the waking world isn't obvious, and the ambiguous shape of hulking danger that hangs over him fades slowly and seamlessly into the haloed brown wood that boards up the windows across the room from him. It takes longer for him to remember the room, and think up a plausible explanation as to how he had gotten there.

B's face, and a tidal wave of sensory information, the humming of his skin and the cold sweat on his upper lip, the ground beneath him; his memories are foggy and loud and hard to set in order. He sits up and whole world moves with him but, unlike before, the spinning slows and the room sets itself right within a few moments, and then he is just cold and violently thirsty. 

"Hey," Mello says, because Mello is standing in the room, slightly off-center, hands at his sides and frowning distantly. His tone is tentative.

"Hey," L says back, for lack of anything else to do. 

Mello scratches his arm, pale hairs glinting in the uneven light. "How do you feel?" 

"Where's B?" L speaks before even registering what Mello had said, and when he does fully process the exchange it strikes him how ill-fitting his question had been, how starkly it must stick out. Blinking a few times, he bats it away, overriding it with a quick, "Fine." Then he pauses and rethinks. "No, sick, actually, but better than I did." 

"You fainted," Mello tells him starkly, weight shifting from one foot to the other.

"I assumed as much." L leans his back against the dusty wall behind him, taking slow breaths. "What time is it?"

Mello shrugs, turning to look out the only uncovered window. "Noon, maybe? I don't have a clock. They'll probably be back soon, though. They've been gone for a while."

"Gone where?" L tries to ask, but breathes in some stray mothball or another as he does and ends up hacking the words out indecipherably, doubling over slightly at the sharp pain in his lungs.

Mello's figure twitches in his peripheral vision, obviously at a loss as to what to do, until he says, "I'll get you some water," and moves towards the window. He stops halfway there. "Well, no," he says, "actually I won't. You have to drink straight from the faucet because there aren't any cups that don't have a fungus growing in them." He crosses his arms, as if using the leverage to hold himself up. "At least, I think it's a fungus. I don't really know."

He blinks at L expectantly, who - after a drawn out internal debate over whether the burning in his throat or the shaking of his legs is less preferable - comes down on the side of the former and stands to follow him. "I guess Wammy's only really teaches biology insofar as it relates to corpses, huh?" he murmurs, going for levity, but his voice sounds so hushed and unamused even to his own ears that it hardly does anything to lighten the leaden mood. 

Mello waits for him while he makes his slow trek, and when spatial relations become too much for his body to handle, he's there at L's side holding him up like a bony, golden crutch. The bathroom is down a long, cavernous hall and since functioning electricity seems too much to ask of Dracula's manor - which this may as well be - they move slowly through the grey dark. The bathroom itself is cold, made of marble and glass, and although it lacks most furnishings, there is a large, claw-foot tub pushed against the far wall, underneath a tiny window with a square of corroded wood across it, which lets in at least enough light for them to find the sink. 

The water is cool if not entirely crisp, and he can feel his heart rate slowing to a reasonable speed as he swallows unceremoniously, lapping like a dog and caring very little about appearances at this point, either way. Mello is still holding him up, but seems to suddenly become aware of L propping himself against the sink, and retreats a few steps back to simply watch. 

The moment drags on, the hiss of running water filling up the room, diluting the tense air with a freeing distraction, and L stays with his head in the sink for longer than he really needs to simply to avoid whatever else the scene will turn into next. When he stands up straight, shutting off the faucet, his hair is dripping and he feels somewhat comical standing there, as if in out of the rain, in the middle of a dark room with a teenage boy. 

He wants to ask about Beyond and Wedy, where they went and what they're doing, and to whom, but nothing comes out. He feels drained, a wet matchstick on the edge of a forest fire, so close to the action and yet incapable of touching it. Light is locked in a cell somewhere, Misa in another, and he's here with wet spots on his t-shirt and the lonely impotence of a man who's grown used to relying on others to provide. 

All the little soldiers set to run at his command, and he can't find his voice. 

"Do you like cold french fries?" Mello asks, after several stretching moments of silence. 

"No." L frowns. He hadn't even thought about food, but quite suddenly he's rabidly hungry. He frowns more deeply and looks up. "Do you have any?"

Mello raises his eyebrows, but turns quickly on his heel. "I'll get them." 

He disappears into the darkened hallway and L closes his eyes and follows, moving in accordance with his four auxiliary senses. Watari had blindfolded him and sent him out to tight-rope on a tree branch when he'd been 8. He's been extensively trained in dealing with all forms of sensory deprivation. He is a master at this. 

He bumps into the wall twice and ultimately ends up in the wrong room, a grand dark study with a mass of covered furniture, armchairs and desks that stand like patient ghosts in the deep shadows. He opens his eyes slowly, matching the reality of his setting to how he'd conceptualized it in his head. There's a melodic twitter coming from the vaulted ceilings and L would not be surprised if there are whole generations of avian life rooted up there. The thought it actually comforting. Maybe this place isn't as dead as it looks. 

When Mello finds him he's sitting curled up on a covered sofa, bathed in the light from the window that he'd cleared through violent use of his foot and shoulder. Mello blinks at the rubble, glances upward at the gentle tweeting, then sighs and sits down next to him. 

"There's ketchup, too, if you want," he says, handing a nondescript bag of leftovers to L.

"Charming," L says, wrinkling his nose, but he eats what he's given. After the suspect diet Light had had him on, this isn't much of a downgrade.

Several minutes pass where most of what he can hear is his own chewing, intermingled occasionally with Mello's bare foot tapping on the floor, but once L's fed enough to regain a minimal amount if his faculties, the strained quiet doesn't feel like enough. "I think," he says, after some deliberation, "that propriety dictates that I owe you an apology." 

Mello shoots him a slow sideways glance. "I don't care about propriety." 

"Oh, good," L says flatly, voice returning to its standard state of blasé, "me neither. What I mean is, you came an awfully long way for something comparatively disappointing, and if I try to dredge up some empathy, I can see how difficult a situation you must have found yourself in." 

The crease in Mello's brow grows deeper with each word. "And what situation are you talking about, exactly?"

L shrugs. "You came here for glory, and what you found was a mess. I don't know what B has or hasn't told you, but my imprisonment with Kira was mostly, if not initially, voluntary. First it was part of a game, and then it just part of my own folly, but it was never something that I needed to be rescued from."

"So, what you're saying is that I came all the way here for nothing?" Despite the question that it's phrased as, Mello doesn't appear to see this as brand new information. 

L nods. "More or less. It's my nothing, though, and I'm sorry you had to become involved in it." He feels like he's reading off lines from a grief counselor, a stiff cop comforting the bereaved from behind a copy of _Compassion for Dummies._  

Mello sits forward, scratches under his chin, then stands and begins pacing back and forth raggedly. He stops after several rounds of this and looks at L with a curious expression, face far more boyish than it has looked through the whole conversation. Even in his gaunt, tired eyes there is a spark of the familiar idealism that L had seen peeking around corners at him during his infrequent trips to Wammy's House. 

"Maybe I don't regret it, though," he says, with more force than the situation really calls for, speaking loudly and with apparent passion. "Is that strange?"

L blinks and processes the thought, and can't decide if this makes him like the boy more, or if it's just the sliver of a genuine emotion that's making it easier to breathe in the room, but it doesn't much matter about specifics. Big picture, and all that.

"Not much stranger than anything in this world," he says, sinking back into the sofa. The twittering of the nests above them provides a less solemn backdrop than the scene really demands, but he thinks he likes it that way.

Mello sits back down. "You sound like _him_."

There is no great mystery as to the identity of the man in question. L thinks back and tries to keep an eye roll in check, but ultimately fails and lets his expression do what it will. "Maybe," he says, "he just sounds like me."

They sit there like that, in quite company and sharing cold french fries, for another ten or so minutes before Wedy and B get back and the world gets going again, the whirring mechanism that keeps them all spinning through the motions of life, death, love, and other such melodramas starting back up. The quiet is a kind of respite while it lasts, though, and makes L consider vaguely the idea that Wammy's kids might not be so doomed after all, or if they are, he's at least in good company.

 

\---

 

Misa cannot see her. Rem speaks, but gets no reaction. She'd expected this, been prepared for it, but the wall of separation - thin and colorless, a membrane of colliding worlds and their intrinsic inability to properly mesh into coherent communication - leave her feeling sickly and alone. They had been apart before, and she had been forgotten, but always with the promise of remembrance, of reintroduction. Now she floats in a bright room,Ryuk at her back, whispering gentle kindnesses to a girl who cannot hear them. 

She's handcuffed, wrists and ankles, to a chair, and as far as Rem knows, no one has been into see her, except likely to provide the untouched tray of food at her side. Her head is pillowed on the worn metal table and she blinks soundly, unaware of the two of them floating right in front of her.

"How did this happen?" Rem asks, once she's fully tested and confirmed Misa's lack of response to or awareness of her. "Why did she give up the Notebook?"

Ryuk shrugs, still smiling. "Dunno. I tried to ask Light, but he won't talk to me. He can obviously see me, though, because he glares and makes obscene hand gestures that I don't understand under the table. All I know is that between last night and now L escaped in a car with some wacky people, Misa lost her memories, Light went grocery shopping with his favorite lawyer, and then suddenly the police are everywhere - with their helmets on, too, so good luck seeing any names - and I'm following a bunch of cop cars through a traffic jam across Tokyo." He looks confused, but more energized by the disaster than perturbed. "Anyway, I figured you'd wanna know what was up."

His vague acknowledgement of the weight of the situation doesn't impress Rem much. "You should have come to get me the moment things started going wrong," she tells him.

"Maybe, but it was way too fun to quit watching."

Rem sighs, moving closer to Misa to examine the tear tracks on her face. She would like to be able to brush them without going right through her cheek. She would like to be able to touch the girl without seeing her own hand, without a mass of disgust and strangeness intermingled in their contact. She would like the girl to want to be touched by those hands. None of this is possible, hardly even qualifies as conceivable.

So, failing fantasy, Rem would simply like to keep her safe.

She turns back to Ryuk. "At least if L's out, that means that this is probably his doing. He'll protect Misa. He has to. We made a deal." She is sure she is attempting to convince herself just as much as she is Ryuk.

They fade out into the hallway, through the wafting fumes of burnt coffee and exhaustion, men in ill-fitting suits flitting around them like flies on a corpse. "Do you really trust that guy?" Ryuk asks, half of his leg disappearing into a copy machine.

"Not at all," Rem says, ducking down a corner when she spots L's investigators camped out in a line of folding chairs in the adjoining hallway. It wouldn't make much of a difference if they saw her at this point, seeing as everything seems to be falling apart for Kira anyway, but she doesn't have time to be harassed for answers at the moment. "But Misa is still better off with him than she is with Light," she tells Ryuk, who follows her alternate path without complaint.

"So then, do you wanna go find him? Talk to him?" Ryuk's grin shines brighter as they drift through the wall into the white midday sunlight.

"That can wait," Rem says, looking skyward, even though the true direction of what she wants to find is not so much above Earth, as it is parallel to it. "Right now I want to talk to someone else." She speaks clearly and concisely, and waits to be heard.

She doesn't have to wait long.

 

\---

 

They bathe sequentially with cold water in the half dark, more bathing products on hand than one would find in the stockroom of a five star hotel. After in-depth exploration of the haul, L decides the _Creamy Cranberry_ scent of his shampoo is somewhat nauseating, but it's counterbalanced by his unending preoccupation with the loofa.

"Need me to scrub your back?" a voice titters, fifteen minutes into his soak, and he's far less surprised than he reasonably should be when B's fully clothed body sinks down into the tub with him.

L blinks at him, doesn't remark at his state of dress - he's always taken performances of this sort in stride, doing his best not to feed into B's attention-mongering - but just says, "You already had your turn."

"I wanna go again," B says, leaning forward to place his chin on L's bent knees where they're curled up in front of him. "I'm greedy."

L leans back, closing his eyes. If he's uncomfortable with the arrangement, himself naked and exhausted - though considerably more well-fed and caffeinated than he had been, thanks to B and Wedy's grocery expedition - it's only an afterthought, a consideration of propriety that's promptly abandoned with the rest of his identity, which is piled down on the floor somewhere, gathering dust. He pinches his nose and imagines it's Light here in the bath with him. The image doesn't make him feel better but it does make him panic slightly, the wild weight of what he needs to do hanging over him once again in full color. 

"I have to dry myself off," he says. "I have to get up and get dressed and I have to make a call and I have to show up and make the world not end. How am I going to keep the world from ending when I can barely walk in a straight line?" He shakes his head. "This was all such a terrible idea. Existence, I mean. I bet the cosmos looks back on the Big Bang as an embarrassing mistake. I know I would if I was responsible for such an unmanageable mess."

"You like the mess," B says, leaning forward and brushing a wet strand of hair out of L's eyes.

"I like other people's messes," L corrects, leaning into the touch. "I like to watch them, and dissect them, and learn from them. All that knowledge is supposed to keep me from making my own."

B lifts his hand, trailing it down L's jaw, mapping the bones like he has it all laid out in a diagram in his head. "Since when has knowledge ever done anyone any favors?" he says. "The more you know, the more you'll tear yourself into tiny bits. I like to watch, too, but mostly just you. Everyone else is a pale imitation."

L smiles at him degradingly. "You are the palest," he says, and kisses B's cheek. If it hurts him, then it's doing his job, but B just smiles like he thinks he knows better, and maybe he does, and maybe the world ending is the best possible thing that could happen. He's not even quite sure what that means - Light's conviction, his death; L's own admittance of fallibility; the place where these two opposing certainties will inevitably collide, and dance, and destroy. He doesn't want to kill Light, but he doesn't want to let him live. The only solution is no solution, and that's all L has been achieving thus far, but he knows it has to change, and soon. Before the world catches up with itself.

He stands, naked and with a grim fondness, in front of B, the water dripping off him in cool streams, and says, with a characteristic cock of his head, "Get me something to wear?"

"Sir, yes sir," B hums, getting up and padding, soaked and dripping, across the marble floors, down the hall and into the room that's become their main center of operations, to the backdrop Mello's indignant yell of, "Stop, stop, you're getting it on the leather!" and Wedy's melodious laughter. 

He comes back with jeans and a plain white shirt, and L could play it like a demanding child, forcing B on needless trips back and forth simply for his own immature amusement - but that isn't why he rejects the outfit.

"No," he says, lowly, attempting to make his intentions understood, "I want to wear something else. Anything else."

"I see," Beyond says, matching his expression, and L thinks that they're on roughly the same page for once, without the usual fallacies and shenanigans, until B comes back with wet leather in one hand and Wedy's slitted skirt in the other. "How's this?"

He honestly almost takes the skirt, but not before Wedy wades in and snatches it back with a short look up and down L's naked body and a request for them to hurry up and get a move on with the next operation.

"At this rate," she says by way of parting, voice drifting down the hallway, "Yagami will die of boredom before he ever hangs."

 

\---

 

The order for Light Yagami and Misa Amane's relocation to the Kira Investigation Taskforce Headquarters comes in the late afternoon, from an anonymous but extremely high-ranking source outside of the NPA. The general reaction through the ranks is relief. Battling off the demands and pleas from Soichiro Yagami is taking more men and energy than they have to spare, and while the Japanese government has renewed its association to the search for and eradication of Kira, it's common knowledge that they want to stay as far away as possible from any hands-on involvement.

The good news is that none of their officers have been killed off, either because Yagami and Amane are innocent and unconnected to Kira, or because they are guilty and unable to access their murder weapon at the moment.

One wouldn't think that a couple of nice kids with bright futures would be capable of such heinous crimes, but Inspector Katsurou Takizawa has known children under the age of ten who have strangled their siblings in their sleep, and groups of teenagers who had run rampant, exhibiting insatiable cruelty wherever they'd gone. He does not believe in the inherent innocence of young people, women, the rich, the intelligent, or the beautiful. Everyone is capable of debased, immoral acts, and no one can be implicitly trusted.

He does not know what he believes about the suspects in custody, only that if they are guilty, they should suffer the most severe consequences. If they're not, however, he doesn't want to be responsible for holding two relative children, without charging them, for no other reason than because he'd been ordered to. He is glad to wash his hands of this fiasco, or at least set it out of his line of sight and let L take care of it. No one's officially saying it, but it's widely suspected that that's where the orders are coming from, and since none of them are particularly objectionable, they find it in their best interest to follow them.

The transfer is scheduled for 7 AM the next morning. Light Yagami and Misa Amane will be taken by an armed retinue to the center of the Kira Taskforce operations, and stationed with a smaller team who will stand guard on site.

Katsurou loathes to take orders from some Western show-off with a bank account to fund his ego, but he'd loathe even more for he and his family to be killed off by Kira, so he sends down the command to the lower ranking officers and hopes against hope that the next morning goes smoothly, and that somebody brings in donuts.

 

\---

 

**fifteen hours later.**

 

\---

 

L is not wearing leather or a skirt, but he is not in his usual ill-fitting uniform, either. He fades into the crowd with deep greys and greens, and a thick wool jacket that B had nicked from a nearby homeless shelter. He's got billions of dollars in Swiss bank accounts, but he's stealing clothes from the poverty-stricken. He's not sure if that falls above or below the bar he's already set for himself in ethical bankruptcy, or if his time with Light had already eradicated any previous estimation of himself, anyway.

He feels more like mob boss than detective, an entourage of sharply dressed foreigners at his back as they walk from their stolen vehicle up to the entrance of the Kira Investigation headquarters. He imagines Matsuda drooping half asleep next to the security camera feed, wonders how long it will take him to spot their approach, and what exactly the reaction will be. L wonders if he's recognizable. He doesn't feel like the same person. This doesn't feel like the same world. 

_Keep it from ending, keep it from ending._

"What about the car?" Mello says, hanging back slightly, as Wedy strides past him, her figure loose and swaying over the grey sidewalk. "What do we do with it?"

L shrugs. "I'll have Watari sort it out. Get it refurbished, make repairs, and return it to the owners. Same goes for the rest that we stole, and if they can't be fixed, we'll have them replaced. Higher end, better gas mileage, that sort of thing." 

B smiles. His sunglasses draw heavy shadows under his eyes, making him look even more sallow and sharp than usual. L can't decide if it's attractive or disgusting. "Forgiveness is expensive these days," he says.

"It's always been expensive," L says, and walks faster. He's not sure that he can afford it.

They move throw the sparse crowd delicately, disconnected but choreographed to each other's movements. L leads them, the captain of this tiny army, the bird at the head of the flight path that takes the brunt of the wind. First, as always. World's number one detective. That's almost funny and he almost laughs but then he sees the door, sees the handle that he'd never touched but waited beside while someone had opened it for him. There's the passcode and identification center beyond that, the metal detectors further on; a whole labyrinth of expensive pretensions at safety, when really the danger is within, and has always been.

L didn't build this building to keep Kira out, he built it to keep Light in. If only he'd taken precautions against his own movability, things might have worked out better. 

But then who's to say they wouldn't have ended up like this regardless, in some altered configuration, but still the same basic circumstances. Still the choice between loving something or killing it, or doing both. Or doing neither. He wonders if B would have never come if he had never gone missing, and he wonders if he's okay with that. He would have been. He always was. Reality has changed, and it has changed him with it.

He's very curious, and very afraid, to see how it has left the god of the new world.

It's only been a day, but they might as well have never met before, for how separate Light feels to him. If L was smart he'd keep it that way. If he'd been smart, he'd have had Wedy hit him with her sniper rifle from across the street and call it sorted. He's not that smart. So much for number one.

He stops in front of the great grey double doors, not quite sure what to do with his hands.

"Do we just ring the bell, then?" Wedy asks warily, hips cocked, arms planted on her waist. She looks good in her new clothes, but he misses her pale, chapped lips. They'd reminded him of their first meeting.

B grins beside her. "We could always just find you a car and have you open the place up for us." He moves closer, angling his body up beside L's, peering over his shoulder and cocking his head.

"I'm thinking," L says, glancing up at the lens of the slim camera that watches them, "that we can maybe just wait."

They don't have to wait long before a voice crackles over the intercom system, Shuichi Aizawa's bluntly excitable tone distorted by the noise of the feed. "Is that - are you - " He's stumbling over his recognition, speaking before fully comprehending, and L enjoys it because it makes his return all the more satisfying.

"Yes," he says, leaning forward to speak into the microphone, finger on the wide black button, "I'm here to see the detective known as L. I hear he owns this building, and I have important information for him regarding the Kira case."

 

\---

 

Life is the first thing. Death is the second. The third is a halfway world, strung between the two by forces unknown and unknowable. An act of violence, the grass slick with rain, a child's quiet terror. Headlights, scrapes, the clean burn of flesh renewing, stitching itself back together, unbecoming. Salt water. A breathless year. A foreign land in a foreign world.

An act of violence, revisited. Again and again.

She misses her home. She misses her leg. She misses places that she's never been, feels them writhing on her insides, cloying and shadowed. She can feel the gateway, once scattered - across the world, the city, the street - forming, all of the pieces drawn together, creating a lock to fit her key.

She'd stolen the key from a fragile girl. She's not sorry but she might have been at one point, when she understood the concept. Might have been sorry about the children, too. 

She moves through the underground, through the skies, through the thick city smog to a tall silver building that glints in the heady sunlight. It is a new building. She is a new monster.

She is going to find home.

 

\---

**tbc.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well well. you guys know what i love? the shinigami realm. the note's got all these rules and restrictions but the world itself is pretty bereft of any canon history or detail, so it's fair game to make it up as you go along, and that's one of the most fun things about writing this. that and B. i really love beyond birthday there's no other way about it and i'm sincerely sorry to anyone who doesn't enjoy him or lxb but he's very important and fundamental to me, so here he is, taking the spotlight and yapping a lot about nothing.
> 
> that said, after this chapter we're going to start to rev up the lxlight engine again, so fasten your seatbelts, kids! (or at least don't stick any limbs out the window).
> 
> thank you for reading and any possible reviews or comments you might leave. i love you all very much!


	27. curtain fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, well this chapter took longer than it should have because i got sidetracked by original fiction for the first time in maybe a year, so i'm trying to balance both nights and a short story that is quickly turning into a longer story. woe is me, excuse, excuse, etc. sorry this chapter took a month! you get your first smidgeon of lxlight interaction in a while in here, but it will probably disappoint (which i think is the goal because i apparently like to drag shit out?) never fear, tho, there'll be a little (lot of) somethin somethin next chapter. 
> 
> anyway, thank you so much for all the reviews and comments and bookmarks and faves and everything! i love you guys and you keep me going. thanks for reading, as always, and i hope you enjoy!
> 
> (warnings for blood, violence, guns, poorly constructed scenes and aiber hugging people. you know, the usual.)

_"A murderer is always unreal once you know he is a murderer. There are people who kill out of hate or fear or greed. There are cunning killers who plan and expect to get away with it. There are angry killers who do not think at all. And there are killers who are in love with death, to whom murder is a remote kind of suicide."_

\- Raymond Chandler, _The Long Goodbye_

 

\---

 

Security has gotten lax in his absence. No one asks for him to establish his identity, nor says much more than, "L? L, is that you?" through the intercom, frazzled and buoyant. He responds in the affirmative, and after a few minutes of static and a collective staring contest with the overhead cameras, the door unlocks itself remotely. Watari's doing, most likely. 

He walks into the sterile grey antechamber, his makeshift posse following him with varying degrees of hesitance - Wedy with ease, Mello without, B tight-roping jovially between the two. It's like stepping into a time capsule, the him from the previous month haunting every inch of this place with ghostly reserve. The him that is here now can hardly believe he'd built this building. If he could do it over he'd scrap this design and go bigger, brighter, more ostentatious and offensive. Put up a whole cathedral, with gargoyles and baroque ceilings, religious imagery everywhere. The church that Kira surely craves. Give no one any room for doubt as to what this investigation was and is: a performance, a play.

Almost time for the curtain to drop. 

The door shuts behind them, sliding closed at the press of some remote switch or lever, a minutia of design interface that L can't even remember now, and in almost the next moment Matsuda is tumbling out of the stainless steel elevator doors at the end of the hall, tripping like a newborn foal who's only just found his feet. Aizawa and Mogi, characteristically frowning and expressionless respectively, follow him out. 

"Ryuzaki!" he shouts more or less into L's face, sliding to a jerky stop halfway down the hall. "I can't believe it, I was really starting to think you weren't coming back! People started saying you were dead, but I never - " he pauses, stiffening with a glance back to his colleagues behind him. "I mean," he begins to edit himself, but stops again when he catches sight of L's company. "Wedy-san! What are you doing here? Did you find Ryuzaki, because - " 

"Matsuda-san, please," L says calmly, feeling himself slump back into character as easily as if he'd never been anything else, not an actor waiting in the wings nor fresh out of a job, "it's far too early in the morning for this."

"It is early," Aizawa agrees, barreling down the hall, expression slung somewhere between disbelief, anger, and exhaustion, "and I don't mean to skip past pleasantries, but where the hell have you been? What happened?" He's had a haircut and it's changed the shape of his face, made him look older and more like a cop. 

Mogi is silent as always, but he wades in the background, a hulking shape, echoing the general sentiment of taut disavowal.

"Please, gentlemen," L says, dodging around them to continue down the hall, "my companions have had a long journey and I'm sure this conversation would go much more smoothly over breakfast and with everyone present. Watari is still here, I assume?" He's not assuming at all, knows as much from Light's reports, but his lines come out this way so he lets them.

"He's here," Mogi supplies, prodded by Aizawa's offended silence. 

L nods, pressing the button for the elevator, and says nothing further. B, who has remained notably silent up until now, takes the cue immediately, like a stage direction, slinking through the crowd and pulling Mello with him. "'Scuse us, officers," he simpers.

"Yeah, he's still here," Aizawa mutters, picking up where Mogi had left off without acknowledging the in-between with anything more than a stuttered blink, like B's presence is something caught in his eye that he quickly removes. "We're all here, in fact, and we've been here, right where you left us, doing _your job_ , while you've been off - what? Gallivanting with a bunch of motorcycle gang rejects?" His wild gesture towards L's accompanying party leaves little doubt as to which rejects he has in mind. "No offense meant, Wedy."

"None taken," she breathes lazily, following B's trail at her own pace.

The elevator comes, its doors opening with a shrill beep. L steps into it. No one else moves.

He says, "Sometimes a good gallivant is what one really needs. It did help me catch Kira, after all. Or did you not receive my packages yet?" He turns, punching in the activation code and the number for the main floor.

"Packages?" Matsuda asks, well-meant but unnecessary, the realization twitching into his eyes momentarily, just as it does those of the other officers. "You don't mean… " 

"Kiras number one and two, respectively," L says. "They should have arrived early this morning, with an armed delivery retinue. My instructions to the NPA were very specific." He quirks one corner of his lips as the elevator doors begin to slide shut. 

Perfect timing. He does love a good exit line.

His finale is fractured somewhat, though, when Aizawa shoves his way in throw the glinting doors right before they close, cornering L to the opposite wall. They begin to lift, a familiar light-footed rush under and around them, and L's shoulder blades slam into the elevator's mirrored inner surface. His head jolts sideways with the force and he blinks, dizzy and strangely satisfied, at his sidelong reflection. He hadn't slept the night before, kept up by his electric nerves and the rhythmic twittering from the bird's nests, and the blow to his head sends him temporarily towards the hazy edge of unconsciousness that he'd played musical chairs with the day before.

Righting his head, he looks straight-on at Aizawa, still wearing half a grin. "Ow," he says.

"You've got to be fucking kidding. But you're not, are you?" Aizawa drops his grip, hands falling to his sides, seemingly drained of the rage that had powered the assault.

"About Light being Kira?" L asks, rubbing errantly at the tender point of collision on the back of his skull, fingers kneading through chunks of his offensively scented hair. "I'm afraid not."

Aizawa shakes his head, turning to watch the tiny screen above the door flit through its procession of numbers - 8, 9, 10, 11; they've still got dozens of floors to go - and says, "You're not afraid. You're happy." He closes his eyes, clearly suffering his own internal catastrophe. "You're full of shit."

L rights himself so that they're standing side by side, somewhat prepared for another attack on his person, but willing to bear what may in fact be a well-earned consequence of his handling of the situation. "Only that last statement holds truth, actually, and even that is subject to interpretation."

22, 23, 24, 25, 26.

L misses the ground. He wishes B were here and wishes harder that he didn't. He's meant to have grown out of and away from that crutch, absence making the heart grow more absent, and all. Thirty floors up and he can still feel those fingers, cold and clammy, twined with his. He can feel Light's warm night-breath on his neck, too. 

He can smell Shuichi Aizawa's cologne. It's minty.

"I don't even trust Light that much anymore," Aizawa says, as they approach their destination floor, not looking at L, "but something about your accusations makes me want really badly for him to be innocent. I think maybe you're doing your job wrong."

L wants to snort and so does. "I've never done it any other way."

The elevator stops with a small, barely perceptible jerk, blaring its location harshly with an automated female voice. L really wishes he had programmed these things silent in his initial designs. Aizawa sighs, glances over at him, and he doesn't look pleased, doesn't look forgiving, but he already seems to have accepted the situation for what it is. At present, thats enough. 

"Welcome back," he says to L, as the doors slide open.

 

\---

 

During one of the long nights when they'd been staying with Syd, Mello had woken up an hour or so before dawn, throat rough and eyelids crusted thickly, to B standing over him, studying his face. The fear had been momentary, but overpowering, hitting like a shock treatment, the blood inside of him glowing hot for a moment before his rational mind had made sense of things, reviewing the facts - _he_ _hasn't hurt you yet, and could have, so he probably isn't going to hurt you now_ \- and the heat of his panic had faded to a cool blue unease.

B had laughed loudly at his expression. "I got you good, baby." 

"Fuck off," Mello had mumbled, wetting his parched throat with a thick swallow and rolling over. He hadn't mentioned it in the morning, had barely remembered the encounter, and only recalls it now because of some haywire connection of sense-memory, attaching that single, unremarkable moment to the present with some stringy tether of his subconscious that demands he do so.

It's in B's stance, maybe, the sharp shift in demeanor that begins the second the elevator doors slide shut, cutting L out of the equation. There's that hot blood jump inside of Mello at the grin he's given, wide and maniacal, straight inside, seeping in warm and thick. He feels himself flushing. He looks away. He's not even really afraid of him anymore.

"Touta Matsuda, Kanzo Mogi," he hears B say, and wonders what that's supposed to mean until he turns to watch him bow lowly and obsequiously to the two officers in muted grey suits, who return the gesture with evident discomfort.

"Ryuzaki told you our names?" the supposed Touta Matsuda asks concertedly, straightening up. "I guess that means you're trustworthy, huh?" He gives a conspiratorial grin, obviously well-meant, as if he's trying ardently and with little regard for commonly held propriety to bond here and now in the very ugly hallway of a very ugly building that Mello doesn't quite understand the existence of. 

Beyond winks ostentatiously. "No to both, actually." He twirls to press the button, calling the elevator back down. You'd think in a skyscraper like this there would be more than the one. "This is Mihael," he continues, with a nod to Mello, "and I suppose you're already familiar with Miss Merrie?" 

"Who?" Matsuda is speaking now with slightly more hesitance.

He seems to be the only one of the two willing to engage in conversation. The man who had gone into the elevator with L had sure looked ready to engage, though, and had Mello not been present for the odd martial arts demonstration at Wammy's House during his formative years, he might be worried about L's safety. As it is, he's mostly worried for himself.

"We go way back," Wedy supplies, pushing herself up from the wall she's posed against - though whether it's for the aesthetic or to the benefit her healing wounds, Mello's not sure. She gives Matsuda and Mogi a sideways glance, shrugging as if to disclaim association with B. "Please don't listen to a word he says, boys, it'll only confuse matters." 

"Matters are already confused," B says, continuing off from her words in a parallel, if opposite, split. "Matters are confusing themselves and I'm really just trying to sort things out by making proper introductions." He smiles slyly, lurching forward in a pretense of slow motion to wrap an arm around Matsuda's shoulder, who quavers, leaf-like and folding, under the touch. "So, tell me about the boy."

"Uh, what boy?" Matsuda mumbles, looking from Mogi to Wedy for help, and then to Mello as a sort of last ditch resort, tossed out at the end just in case.

Mello rolls his eyes, decides on mercy over reserve. "Don't do that, B."

He is widely ignored, Beyond shooting him a sideways smile, and then continuing on quite casually with his physical interrogation. "The boy with the big brown eyes who's got the whole world all astir. The one your treasured leader has come back to haunt and taunt, and all that rot. I wanna know about the killer with the capital K. I wanna know," he breathes, practically licking Matsuda's ear, "about Kira."

"I… "

The poor man, sheepish and stiff, tries to shrug B off, but to little effect. Mogi looks uncomfortable, but he doesn't move to intervene, and even Wedy seems barely interested in the game of harassment in front of her. Mello understands her rationale, to a degree - this is how B is, and the sooner these men get used to it, the sooner the lot of them can all get down to business and start working together rather than in uneven, ill-suited tandem. It's baptismal, almost. Dump them in the deep end to see if they can swim. 

That's what had happened to Mello, and he'd learned to paddle his way to a relative shore, but that doesn't mean he's going to be unduly cruel. When you have a hand free, there's no reason you shouldn't offer it to someone who needs it. 

"Stop it, Beyond," he says, imitating a voice he's heard L use on him before, hard and no-nonsense, though he thinks a grudging fondness slips through.

"Stop me," B mumbles, without looking at him, and it's a dare, a thrown gauntlet. _Na na na na boo boo, you can't catch me_. He's such a little punk and if Mello were taller and stronger and also incapable of being killed or done any lasting violence, he'd like to wipe that shit-eating grin off his face. Would like to make him act like a real human for once.

But he's not, is he? And that's the other thing. They can't catch him, can't stop him, can't do a thing, really. L has left them all here, unsupervised, and B could kill them all if he wanted to. Or worse. Wedy's wounds are still healing and maybe that's why she doesn't move to intervene. Maybe officer Mogi can feel the stain of violence in the air, the twitching shadows that writhe at the corners of B's presence, making him more than a man, but yet nothing else conceivable.

"You know I can't," Mello says flatly, not sure what else to do. Not sure even if they're in danger. The air in the room feels hollow, B getting high on his own power over everyone present. Wedy still doesn't have her gun back. They'd all come here unarmed, helpless. 

"Um," Matsuda says, looking around, trying and failing to catch B's eyes, which are locked tight on a space just above his forehead, "the elevator's here."

A moment later there's a sharp _ding!_ , diverting everyone's attention, and the mood suddenly changes, darkness dropped in favor of a shrug as B loosens his grip to let Matsuda slide out as easily as he'd been hooked in. He smiles sheepishly, like he'd been caught in a prank. 

"Whoops, looks like we have to cut the fun short, then." He slides back as the rest of them move forward into the lift, removed seamlessly from the equation. "I'll see you kids up top, I'm gonna take the stairs."

"L's not going to like that," Wedy says lazily, posing herself against the smooth wall like she's one of the building's sleek fixtures. Matsuda and Mogi have rather ducked into the far edges of the elevator, as much out of B's line of sight as they can get, and Mello wonders at how the danger in him is so obvious, even to those who haven't been exposed to even a sliver of it.

B shoots them a rabid grin as the elevator doors slide shut. "L doesn't like anything."

There's a collective exhale as soon he's gone, or rather they are gone, up, up, and away. Wedy looks at her nails. Mello shifts uncomfortably.

"Who is that guy?" Matsuda asks after the quiet sets in, the whir of the plate-glass machinery that surrounds them the only other sound, muted and far away.

"That," Wedy says, not looking at him, not looking at anything, making herself stony-eyed and unreachable, "is one very good question."

No one speaks for the rest of the ride up.

 

\---

 

He smells it like blood, but far off. What a vampire, what a monster; the cops and robbers would have a field day with him, if he'd let them.

He hadn't quite lied - he _will_ meet them at the top and he _is_ taking the stairs, just not quite in the exact order that had been implicit. First down, down, down. That's where the cells are. That's where they're keeping god locked up, if anywhere. Playing with his food is just the tip of the iceberg, but the rest of it resides below, frozen solid in the depths. Death is huddled down here and he wants dearly to meet it and shake its hand. Kiss its cheek, its mouth. Take it and eat it and have it inside of him.

He's either going to swallow the falling star or it's going to swallow him.

Cavernous, cadaverous, the hallways stretch into the next world and he follows them. L had told them how he'd built this building, constructed it for the sole purpose of catching the uncatchable. L hadn't said much about Kira, but he had intimated his attachment, his obsession, his integrity lost and found and lost again. He says the word _love_ but he doesn't like how it tastes, and so B will bite it off his taste buds. Save him the pangs, keep them for himself.

He wants to kill Light Yagami. He's planned it in his head many times over, in many different configurations, with bloodshed and without, bruised and hollow, quiet or screaming loud - there are many ways to end a life. B feels entitled to enact them on others because he has experienced most of them himself. Dying again and again, reborn again and again. Like the messiah, only a little more well groomed.

He comes to a door that wants a code and makes eyes at it, as if he could seduce answers out of a machine. With any luck, Wammy or L had been the ones to program this place, rather than entrusting it to one of their bumbling hand-puppets, but even then that's no guarantee that he'll be able to crack it before L sends someone looking for him. 

He hums to himself, remembering birthdays and anniversaries, words that had melded themselves inside of worlds, become a part of the past and therefore integral to the present. It's not going to be any one of them, is it? He chews his lip, setting his mind to generate and punching in a random string of numbers, trusting his fate to the universe.

_ACCESS DENIED._ It blinks across the small screen in blocky red letters.

"Very rude," B huffs at the universe.

And, in a show of true madness and hilarity - the sort of thing that follows him around like a drug-haze - in a glassy, empty, deathly voice, the universe answers back.

_2-3-8-9-4-0-1_ , something whispers to him without speaking, and he feels shadows encroaching, wrapping him up, and they stroke him the way God strokes the Devil's brow in his fevered sleep, damning and absolving in one gentle blow. He shivers, letting it glow through him, and tapping in the numbers as they sing through his head in a distorted lullaby.

_ACCESS GRANTED._

The door clicks open and as B slithers in, he feels some sort of familiar monster drawing a glinting finger down his spine, and he grins. "That tickles," he mumbles, and then something hits his senses, familiar and citric, seeping into his memory with a hazy drunken warmth, body crushing his in a frail, fizzing kindness. Home, or an attempt at it, and he knows this, doesn't he? 

He turns hurriedly, trying to catch a glance, suddenly doubting that it's the mad universe helping him out so much as something much more solid, but as soon as he looks it's gone. The feeling zips out of existence, nothing left in his periphery except for the dark hall he's been let into. The edge of an epiphany dripping out of sight, and he reaches for it with the depths of his senses, but to little avail. Only the vaguest imprint of a truth almost known.

God and the Devil are gone. It's just him now. He sighs, rolls his eyes at the indignity of the mystical, and turns to go find Light Yagami - though whether to destroy or exalt, he hasn't yet decided. 

Because yes, he wants to kill Light Yagami, but even more so he wonders, with his little black notebook and his little rusted heart, if Light Yagami will be able to kill him.

 

\---

 

By the time they arrive, stiff and antsy, in the main room of headquarters, the yelling has already begun.

"This is utterly unbelievable in part, and yet we all should have expected it! Your complete disregard for the integrity of this team combined with your disinterest in following any ethical guidelines should have been warning enough that, no matter what proof we came up with, you would ignore it in favor of pursuing a desperate attempt to prove your gut instinct correct. My son is not Kira! He has never been Kira and never will be andthe fact that you think you can just waltz back in here after a month without a word is not only ridiculous, but morally despicable!"

"Chief, I know what you're saying but can you just calm down for a second so we can - "

"So you can what? Lynch him in peace and quiet? Why don't you both shut the fuck up and let him explain his side of the story before you break out the pitchforks and torches, yeah?" Aiber glances at the elevator when the mechanically feminine voice announces their arrival. "Oh look, here's more to join the mob," he huffs, then stops short when he sees Wedy, arms crossed, trying to hold herself up and arguably failing. The air in this place is too hot and empty.

She doesn't meet his eyes.

L is slumped at the rough center of a cacophony, jaw pressed to his palm, head titled as if listening with calm approbation. He's got one foot hiked up on the leather chair beside him and he's sipping from a china teacup with delicate peach blossoms etched into it, two crooked fingers hooked uncaringly through the handle. She nods briefly to him, then walks with perfect posture on clicking heels out of the elevator and left towards where she remembers the closest restroom to be. 

"Wedy?" Mello mumbles after her. 

"Don't follow me," she says calmly.

The yelling doesn't abate with her departure, and only seems to get louder as she gets farther away. Maybe she's just getting quieter. Yagami, Aizawa, and Aiber continue a number of diatribes against one another, with a stiff interjection every so often from Watari, and soon a number of heartfelt outcries from Matsuda. L is notably silent, or if he speaks it's too lowly for her to hear.

The bathroom is cool, clean, done in tones of blue. She used to do her make-up in here for early meetings. She locks the stall door behind her and falls forward on her knees. She is not afraid, she is not in pain. She is not so weak. If her stitches ache and her stomach flips on itself, it is a bodily reaction unrelated to her mental state. Beyond Birthday has nothing of hers, and can do nothing to her. He hadn't even meant to. He'd just tortured her the once and it's all fine now. Nothing much to think of. Certainly nothing to make her sick. 

She unzips her skirt when she can stand again, checking the bandages for fresh blood, but the wounds are closed and healing. She is fine. Her hands shake and she mumbles, "Fuck's sake," to herself, struggling to get the zipper back up.

There is knock on the door of her stall.

"I said not to follow me," she snaps, imagining Mello's stiff little fingers and tired eyes, bright and afraid, clinging to her like a child to its mother's skirts. She quite wishes B had stuck around, if only so he could be the one to play the role of _Mommy_. 

"Excuse me, I didn't hear," says a voice far older and more distinct than Mello's tender murmurs, and Wedy rolls her eyes, wiping the edges of them at a practiced angle in order to set her make-up in some semblance of organization, and unlocks the door.

Watari looks unchanged. His suit is starched white and stiff, like the generations of British gentleman that he had separated himself from, peeling off out of a natural progression, entropy as necessity. His expression doesn't flicker much, but if he'd formed any theories following her in here, they appear to be validated by her appearance.

He tilts his head slightly, a mannerism only barely reminiscent of L - natural instead of posed, seeming to meld with his frame rather than jerk apart from it - and asks, "What did he do to you?"

"Who?" she says, fingers clasped over the edge of the door, without real purpose. She can see herself in the mirrors behind him, hung silvery and shining with disuse and high maintenance over the sectional sinks. This whole place looks like it was designed by a prison warden. She supposes it was.

Watari takes off his glasses, producing a handkerchief from his pocket like the Jeeves who's example he has far and away exceeded by now, and wipes at the lenses reservedly. "I'm sure you've figured it out. I wouldn't have sent you at all if I hadn't thought you would." He squints at the glasses, holds them up to the light and checks for smudges that aren't there. "Beyond was a very brilliant boy and remained a very brilliant man even through his incarceration. And," he says, smiling or grimacing with an uneasy nostalgia, "he was always very good as chasing L down."

He sounds so unconcerned and she almost had her womb cut out a week ago. She walks past him, closer to the mirror, her own face growing nearer, more distinct and harder to look at. Her polish is coming off and she can see the rust beneath.

"If you sent him after L," she says to her own face, watching her Monroe red lips shape the words, "why send me after him?"

She knows the answer. She mostly just wants to hear him say it.

"Time," he tells her, as if it's meant to be emphatic, impressive. She doesn't let it be. She can hear the yelling still, echoing from down the hall, under the door.

Watari slips his glasses back on and comes to stand beside her. "I didn't necessarily send him, only gave him the basic information he would need to send himself. That L was missing, presumed dead, but possibly disappeared of his own volition, and did he have any idea where he might have gone if he'd gone anywhere?" Watari shrugs. He is far too casual about it, but so is she, so she doesn't fault him. For other things, yes, but not this. "You were the map to his explorer. I'm sure he could have come to the right conclusions given a few weeks and a lot of research, but I didn't have a few weeks to wait. Mello wasn't calculated into the equation. Whatever we expected of him, it wasn't to end up as a sidekick to Beyond. When I heard him over the microphone embedded in your compact, I realized that he must have been the cause of the hold up in London, and the reason B - who has proven himself a man of action, if nothing else laudable - was in need of a prod."

Wedy's eyes twitch to his reflection, deep greys and blacks and whites ordered in neat lines in the periphery of her vision. She says, "I was never supposed to catch him or kill him, was I? I was just meant to tell him about the case, about Yagami. That's right, isn't it?" She feels cramped, everything too close-quartered in this windowless place. 

"I sense resentment," Watari observes, tone disinterested.

She turns so fast she makes herself a little sick. A little sicker. "You're damn right you do," she hisses. "Sticks and stones are a hazard of the job, but you _sent me in_ just so he could torture information out of me. I'm not a messenger, and I'm _not_ a tool. I'm an agent, I do a job, and you don't get to decide what that job is without telling me." She's breathing too heavily, could hit him if he were a little younger or a little crueler. 

Watari bears her venom gracefully; nodding, accepting blame, but far from apologizing. "It was necessary that B know what we knew about the situation in order to perform at his highest capacity."

He speaks of him like a machine. He does the same thing for L, but when the man is question tends towards the stiff and the robotic, the comparison feels much more justifiable. For all his violent otherworldliness, Wedy has rarely met anyone as unabashedly, animalistically _human_ as Beyond Birthday. He evokes in her, among other things: loathing, disgust, fear, exhaustion, jealousy, nausea and indisputable pain, but all of this fits well into her conception of humanity. He could not have been built. Watari could not have built him.

Wedy grits her teeth, tries to breathe through the rage that won't get her anywhere. "Well, he _performed_. He performed so well I've got homemade stitches and what feels like a couple of bruised ribs. I'll be sending you the medical bills, I hope you know, whenever I have occasion to get proper treatment.

"I'll be expecting them." He looks so unmoved, but he doesn't try to justify a thing, and she appreciates at least that much. One thing you learn in ugly business is how much uglier it gets if you try to make it pretty.

She laughs a little, pressing her fingers cooly to the side of her face, trying to calm the whirring dissatisfaction in her. This is it. This is the world and sometimes you can pistol-whip the shit out of it and sometimes you just have to bear it. 

"And I'll be expecting my paycheck," she says, and lets the matter go with that, because it's too heavy to hold onto at this rate. There's a spike in the volume of the voices outside, which had for the moment quieted to voracious discussion. They're back to yelling now, although L's voice is notably absent from the arrangement. Wedy nods at the door. "In the meantime, what do you plan to do about that?"

Watari doesn't quite shrug - propriety wouldn't allow that - but he communicates an equivalent sentiment in the raise of an eyebrow. "L is back, and relatively undamaged, it seems. How things are to be handled is left up to his discretion."

Wedy huffs a laugh, tries to find her feet with a glance in the mirror. "I can't think of a worse place to leave them." _Nor_ , she thinks, but leaves it out to avoid sounding too trite, _a better one_.

 

\---

  

Everyone is speaking very loudly. The words travel around him, forwards and backwards, and he knows what they're going to be before he hears them. He could have written this scene himself, blocked every movement, scripted all the accusations and defenses. He might have given everybody their own bit of airtime to say their piece, instead of this collision, a cacophony of voices all at once, talking over each other. Talking at him and for him and with him in mind. 

"Aren't you going to say something for yourself?" someone asks him finally, after the mayhem of the conversation has worn itself down into an ill-tempered murmur. It's Ide. He's standing over L, looking down at him expectantly. Everyone is looking at him, in fact.

He ought to act the role of the leader he's meant to be, make some flashy statement to impress them, win them back to his side. Get the job done. Instead, he cocks an eyebrow, holds out his cup, and says, "More tea?"

Aiber, even as his sole defender, is the one who scoffs the loudest at this. "Jesus Christ, L," he says, snatching the cup out of his hand and slamming it down on the table in front of him. "Could you at least pretend to take this seriously?" He looks almost pained.

He had been the first one to see them get out of the elevator. Barely awake, sitting up on the sofa with the crisscrossing patterns of the pillows creased into the skin of his forehead, squinting blearily towards the front of the room. He'd stared at L like Moses with his burning bush - uncomprehending, lost out in his own whiskey-scented desert. Half a second and a, "Hello, Aiber," and L had been knocked back into the adjacent wall, _again_ , and wrapped up in a claustrophobic hug that had made his head swim and his skin crawl and his breath calm just a little bit.

Aiber is too much tenderness. He is an annoyance and he is a blessing. L is very glad that he's here, but knows he shouldn't be.

Watari had come next, emerging from the control room with little ceremony. A nod, a, "Welcome back," an update on the situation - Light's location in the basement cells, the Tokyo Child Killer debacle, the general presumption by this point of his death - all business as usual. That had, at least, been grounding.

Soichiro Yagami, emerging from the stairwell with tired eyes and sweat on his forehead - after seeing to his son's comfort and making his best, though unsuccessful, effort to dispense with the guards who had been sent on L's orders to guard him - had been the opposite of grounding.

Evidently Light had made some intimations as to who was to blame for his current incarceration, because his father had immediately laid credit where it was due. Bracing, but convenient, as it had saved L the trouble of explaining it himself, going through the logistics of his police call, what the orders had been and why. They'd already known.

They had asked him for justifications. He has them in spades; Light's guilt is not something that is up for debate or that he even feels wildly engrossed in proving any longer. If they need testimony they can ask Rem. If L keeps his word on Misa's protection, she will no doubt gladly throw Light to the wolves, to be devoured by the pack he has so long been the leader of. It's not a challenge, not a fight that he's having, and mostly the investigation team isn't much more than an inconvenience, a minor roadblock before he reaches the castle gates.

And storms them.

"Nothing has ever been more serious in the whole of human history, I'm sure," he says, blasé, reaching around Aiber to get retrieve his teacup and pour himself another drink, "but kidnapping and imprisonment tend to exhaust me, and I don't have the energy at present to engage in a competition of vocal performance." He dumps several lumps of sugar into his cup. Everyone has gone much quieter. 

That doesn't last very long.

" _Excuse me_?" Aizawa says after a lulling moment, and Matsuda follows airily with, "Ryuzaki, what do you mean?"

The chief is shaking his head, sweat on his temples, loathing L with obvious fervor. The man is probably very tired. He cannot rightly be blamed for denying the guilt of his son, the possibility of viperous betrayal from within his family. The crimes of a loved one are much harder to forgive than those of unknown strangers, moving in their dark places and fulfilling the duties of murder and mayhem that make jobs for people like police and detectives.

Evil is a distant thing.

When it comes close, it becomes harder to hate. L had learned that with the best of his lessons.

Contrastingly, Aiber perks up notably at L's words, brows raising and lips curling with almost relieved satisfaction. "So, I was right. He did have you hostage."

The investigators hold their respective breaths together as a single unit, brows furrowed, throats heavy, so much dependent on L's answer.

He doesn't give it to them straight, just shrugs and says, "He did no worse to me than I did to him during his imprisonment." He glances around, hates that there are no windows in this place. Even B's decrepit haunt is more comfortable than this building, if only for the natural light and fresh air. 

It's in this minute search for something that isn't grey and manufactured that he notices Mello cornered against the far wall, hands crossed, observing, and _alone_. Where are Wedy and B? Where is Watari, for that matter?L had been so busy handling the people in front of him he hadn't had the mind to manage those he'd briefly set aside, despite how much more trouble the latter category could get in.

"You're saying Light kidnapped you? _You_? The greatest detective in the world?" Aizawa sounds sharp, but not wholly disbelieving. He doesn't like Light so much anymore, L can tell. Things have not deteriorated around here as much as he'd like them to have, but they'd certainly made a decent start.

He's about to answer, distracted as he is with his lost comrades, but Wedy's voice sounds from the opposite side of the room before he can manage to. "It's easier than you'd think," she says calmly. L turns slowly to face her, trying not to smile. "We got him out of the building Light was holding him in without too much muss or fuss, save maybe some property damage."

"The car, that was you?" Aiber asks excitedly, moving across the room to greet Wedy, seeming to have taken notice of her for the first time. Watari is at her side, but he moves cordially out of impact distance when Aiber swings his arms in a wide embrace, wrapping Wedy up in a vigorous, grinning hug. "That's my girl!"

She winces through the contact, brow pinched ever so slightly, and L wonders if it's out of pain or distaste, but sincerely doubts the latter. Her disinterest in Aiber is always feigned if it is present at all, and the look she gives him when he finally pulls back is one of pure fondness. 

"I'm not your girl," she says smilingly, voice soft.

Everyone else looks vaguely uncomfortable, except for the chief, who looks ready to put his fist through a wall. "I don't mean to discount your experience, Wedy, but just because Ryuza - L _said_ that Light was the one holding him there doesn't mean it's _true_." He's looking around pleadingly at the rest of them, a man halfway broken and sporting cracks for the remaining distance.

"Yeah," Matsuda agrees, hurriedly latching onto the glimmer of denial and hope, "I'm mean are you sure it was Light? Maybe you guys are just mistaken? It's probably just a big misunderstanding, right?"

No one answers him. L doesn't even look at him, just meets Wedy's eyes quite fiercely, as soon as Aiber's no longer blocking their shared line of sight, and asks, "Where is B?"

 

\---

 

Syd has been on hold all day, and when he finally is put through to someone at Narita who will speak English to him, they still don't seem able to understand what he's asking for.

"No, no, his passport would have said Rue Ryuzaki, but it's not his real name. I don't care about that, though. No, don't call the police! Or, I don't know, do, I don't care. Do whatever you have to, I just need to _talk to him_. Or - excuse me, excuse me!"

Cheery elevator music clicks live as he's put on hold again, and in the next moment his mind is blanking with rage and he's chucking the phone across the room. It hits the wall with a dull thud, and makes a cracking noise when it drops to the floor. He really hopes it isn't broken.

He really, _really_ needs to talk to B.

 

\---

 

When he'd been informed of the transfer, Light had fleetingly enjoyed the fantasy that his father had managed to get him out of the incarceration using some of his sway in the police force or just inciting some of that good old fashioned compassion that humans are rumored to have a mighty store of. Even deeper beneath the surface, squirming around at the gummy center of his id, had been the momentarily indulged idea that this had all been part of elaborate scheme of L's for his protection, that he'd thought he'd been doing him good and that, in fact, Light would be greeted upon his release by a bitter cup of police station coffee and that grim smile, worn around the eyes, that L gives him on the early, suffering mornings that they share.

None of that actually happens.

He'd caught a few glances at Misa in the hallway, but everyone else he'd seen was helmeted, and they'd been led out the back exit and into two separate police cars, promptly blindfolded, and spent a bumpy forty or so minutes traveling across town to a very familiar building that incites pangs of a very familiar panic. They'd taken off the blindfold once indoors at his father's insistence, but the guards had refused to leave - claiming their orders had come from the very top and couldn't be disobeyed under an circumstances. Two of them are still outside of his door now, keeping watch.

Or, at least, they had been. 

He hasn't opened his eyes in lord knows how long, could have been hours or just a few minutes, slipping as he is through states of consciousness, unconsciousness, and the halfway place - stung with a amalgamation of memory and dream - inbetween them. Snippets of conversations that he'd had, or plans to have, or has never intended to have and simply finds himself accosted by, play through his head on a low static frequency, floating in the dim nowhere-world of his cell.

The room phases slowly back into being, deep grey and decently wide, nothing but the cot he's laid back on and a toilet and sink to keep him company, and the hulking, heavily armored door… which appears, now that his vision is focusing, to be _open._  

Light sits up. A little too fast, the whole of his vision going spotty, but then it passes and he is just staring at the door, the thin crack of hallway light slipping in, and the shadows flickering around the edges of the room.

He stands, approaching the door, cautious and excitable at once - maybe this is it, just maybe he is saved and everything is good and how he meant it to be; he is loved and he is valued and L couldn't give him up, wouldn't ever, always needs him around, and alive -

And then the shadows move, crawling up and introducing themselves, and with a little twist of the world's axis, he's being tackled to the floor, back colliding with the cool linoleum, skull grazing it, mind trying to figure out what exactly _the hell is happening_. The body on top of him isn't immediately evident as human, twisted in too many awful shapes and grinning like a mad wild dead thing. 

_Ryuk_ , he thinks for a moment, and _L_ , for another, but this is neither of those things, and that becomes heavily apparent when the man - because it is a man, with two arms and two legs and only one head - leans down and breathes silkily into his face, in a voice he doesn't recognize, "Oh my _god_." 

 

\---

 

He is her brother, or father, or maybe a far off cousin. He is something of hers, or she is something of his, or they or someone else's, collectively, intertwinedly.

The other is not, is a thing of his own, outside of the kingdom, but holding the key. Not directly, not in his hands - she's got it, she's holding on - but it's _his_ still. Funny how that works. Too many rules and regulations, too much dirt in her throat, grime in her lungs, ruin moving sluggish and encompassing within her skin. Composed and decomposed. She wants to see his body rot, sun shot out and bleeding daylight.

Her brother is night, moonscapes and star deaths, the universe spreading like an explosion currently in progess, endless and expansive and swallowing up the void around it with bristling, violent _life_. She almost has a bit of a crush on him. Just like before.

Night pins Day to the floor, straddles his chest and snarls down into his pretty, pretty face. And she watches.

 

\---

 

The guards sent from the police station on his orders collapsed in the hallway outside of Light's cell is all L needs to see on the security feed before he's on his feet, bypassing the elevator and its meandering luxury to clamber down the stairs, barefoot and breath storming in and out of his lungs. There's a collective murmur behind him, gasps about the cameras in Light's cell having gone blank with static, but he doesn't stick around to discuss theories.

They'll follow him, anyway. Everyone always does.

He's not sure what he'd been expecting, bring Beyond here. A shield, maybe. He'd wanted his very own personal bodyguard, a guard dog hulking in the shadows, barking at threats and maybe even using his blatant strangeness to distract from L's ineptitude. Instead, L had distracted himself, let B's presence drift into the back of his mind as an afterthought, a part of himself and of the situation not to be questioned. And it had, of course, as with all things and people not tightly monitored and controlled, devolved into chaos.

He's halfway to the bottom now, the sounds of his flesh slamming down on the metal of the stairs over and over ricochet into his head harder than he feels the collision, numbed out by panic and a quiet sense of shame. 

He has been very stupid. He has done everything he has ever warned himself against, and he is paying for it now. Light is paying for it. And when did Light become the victim and not the villain? When did B become the attacker and not the protector? It's all so transient. L isn't even sure of his own role: leader, leper, or something else entirely? 

He's almost to the bottom now. He has to move fast. Someone will die if he doesn't move fast.

Someone will probably die, anyway.

 

\---

 

The man above him licks his lips, and spittle drips on Light's face. 

"You're not as tall as I thought you'd be," he says, rotating his hips slightly, impatiently, like a child on a ride that won't go, and Light shivers, tremors of something gutless and terrified ringing through him. "No halo or ethereal glow or anything, either. Kind of a disappointment for a deity, honestly." 

He looks so much like L, and yet so much unlike. As if someone had tried to sculpt L off of a drunken description, without ever having seen the man himself. He's a cartoon, over-exaggerated, bigger eyes, darker circles, wilder hair, more pronounced mannerisms. He's all in black, too, but he hadn't been, the other day.

Light is sure this is the man he'd seen in the car with L yesterday. What he is unsure of is everything else: the _why_ and the _how_ and the _where did he come from_? He's not even sure which way is up, at this point, or if it even matters.

"Who are you?" he chokes out, managing even in his fear to sound accusatory and inconvenienced. _How dare you break into my cell. Get your own._

"Oh!" the man gasps, as if shocked and excited by the question, swinging his legs forward and changing the shape of his posture so that he is more sitting on Light than anything else, legs spread out to each side and crotch a few blatant inches from Light's face. "Oh, well that's a very complicated matter, isn't it? Who is anybody, really? I think I'm probably a thousand different things, depending on who you ask, and a thousand more if you ask _me_ , but for the purposes of this conversation, all I am is what _you_ perceive me as. So, really," he says, leaning forward to cup Light's cheek in a clammy, spine-shivering hand, "the answer to the question is up to you. Who am I?"

Light frowns. It's insult enough to be attacked while in a heavily guarded holding cell, but it's a mile worse for your attacker to then pummel you with pseudo-philosophy and a lot of overly familiar touches. "A crazy person, I'm pretty sure," he spits.

"Well, yes," the man says immediately, with the same kind of voice that Sayu uses to say, _'duh!'_ "Yes, I am that, but who isn't? That doesn't narrow it down, sunshine. I'm not asking you what your highly evolved little logical brain is _telling_ you I am, I'm asking what you _see_." 

Light blinks at him. He blinks back, batting doe lashes, a gesture that L has never done and will never do.

"You know what I see."

The man smiles, lips stretching to reveal glinting white teeth. "Yes, I do, but it's much more fun if you say it." 

Light closes his eyes, doesn't want to give in to such a pointless little game, an impotent exertion of power, but also doesn't want to have his esophagus crushed any longer than he absolutely has to. So, he says, "L." 

"Ding, ding, ding!" the man chirps, propping himself up on his knees again to lean over light, intimately, body covering his. "We have a winner."

"Where is he?" Light demands, exerting another attempt to free himself, but the weight on him is immovable, as if the man holding him down has a strategic pact with gravity itself. Maybe Light's just weak from hunger. Maybe it's another in a stream of hazy, nonsensical dreams.

The man giggles. It doesn't feel like a dream.

"Oh, you know, around. Off doing very important things, I'm sure, the way he does. Or else," he adds, eyebrows quirking merrily, "I killed him and stashed the body, and now I've come to do the same to you. Bury you both together and call it eternal love." He shrugs. "You never know."

Light grits his teeth, longs for the Note, for Misa and her eyes. His fingers twitch with the urge to _punish_. "If you were really here to kill me," he says, "I doubt you'd do all this speechifying beforehand. Besides, there are cameras everywhere. Someone will be here any second, and with guns. You're not going to lay a hand on me." He says it with more conviction than he feels. 

Tilting his head to the side, the man sits back on his heels, as if studying Light. After a moment, he reaches out a hand up, pulling him respectfully into a sitting position. Light has just enough time to feel smug and gratified before the same hand is reeling back into a fist and slamming directly into his cheekbone, sending him flying back onto the floor, knocking all sensation other than sharp-shooting _pain_ out of him. Another blow hits not a second later, harder this time, and he hears something crack, and can't hold back the animalistic yell that echoes out of his throat.

The weight holding him down disappears, and he rolls to the side clutching his face, too overloaded with the weakening head-rush of agony to do anything but curl into himself. He doesn't know what he is thinking, mental processes reverting to the instinct to run, hide, _get as far away as possible_ , but before he can even manage to move, a sharp kick collides with his back, rocking his insides, and he howls.

He thinks he's going to throw up. He thinks his nose is broken. He thinks he sees L out of the corner of his teary eye, but, of course, it's not L.

He's rolled onto his back, gentle hands suddenly brushing his forehead, a voice hushing him, kind and comforting, and he squints up with something like hope, just a _little bit of hope_ , but he knows before he even sees that his fantasies are not and will not come true, especially not like this. L has never been so soft with him. 

The man he doesn't understand the existence of, but loathes fiercely and without regard for identity, smiles soothingly down at him. "Nice guess," he hums, "but wrong, wrong, wrong." He clears his throat, bending down to face him exactly, all features lined up in a perfect mirror. "Now, Light, unless you wanna play another guessing game and see which one of your organs I can eviscerate the fastest, you are going to tell me _everything_ that you know about Death Notes, Shinigami, and L Lawliet. Alright, baby?"

The words flow into him and pool thick and heavy in his skull. He doesn't know quite what's happening, but it's starting to all piece together under a common theme. L is such a fucker and Light should have killed him when he'd had the chance. 

"I," he gasps, breath choking him up with the effort to form words, "I'm going," - he hacks a cough - "to write your name right next to his."

The man doesn't look surprised, just tilts his head condescendingly. "Fine," he says. "Bury us together. Call it eternal love." And then he reels back for another hit - 

But it never comes.

Light braces for it a few seconds longer than he has to, even after the rush of air and the thunk beside him. It's laughter, bubbling and mad, that makes him squint his eyes open. The same shape hulks over him, a jagged silhouette in blacks and whites, wide eyes and a gaunt, oppositional chin, but it's drained of its cartoonish over-embellishment, back to the stark, sad man that he knows and has various unbalanced feelings towards.

The world slows to an intermediary period, memories of dim mornings and hot breath, laughing about death and planning ways to kill each other. All the love or hate or otherwise he's got stored up in him bleeding out as if through a wound. 

"L," he gasps, trying to sit up, but it gets choked out on a whisper and his limbs quiver, ribs aching. His head is so hazed he can barely tell the ceiling from the white spots clattering across his vision.

L doesn't even look at him, just goes straight for the man, or monster, or whatever it is that's writhing back onto his feet beside where Light's trying to regain a few, or any, of his motor functions. There's a sharp sound, the smacking of flesh coupled with a cheery yap of laughter, and a hard thunk that shakes the room, making everything fuzzier than it already is.

Heavy breaths and scuffling, there's a fight going on and through his eerie dips in and out of consciousness, Light becomes half convinced that he is a participant, going through the motions of violence that toss him turbulently around the room, sending his head spinning. It's only the rough collision with the wall and L's yell of, "Goddammit, B!" that rouses him enough that he realizes that he is collapsed on the floor, same place as he had fallen. The blood from his nose is dripping into his mouth. 

"L, L, L, darling," the man who isn't L titters between grunts, "you're, ah, getting your hands all dirty. Where's the armed guard? Where are your little toy soldiers? I'm sure they'd love to play with me."

Light tries to sit up. He wants to watch. He wants to see what's happening. L is protecting him, maybe. L is fighting on his behalf. That's the fantasy, at least. The reality is that he is at least here, in existence, not disappeared or out to sea, lost across streets a hundred miles wide, as he had been. That's something.

"You're not as fun a playmate as you think," L grits back, hacking a cough. His voice is not silky or smooth, none of the low lit conspiracy in it that Light has come to expect. He sounds like he's just crawled up and out of his coffin, through rot and grave dirt, just to be here and to do this.

"Gonna kill me now?" the man goads, like he's asking for a present. 

The sound of flesh hitting flesh has stopped, breaths roaring hard but slowing, and Light tries to sit up to get a better look at the situation.Everybody is running around him, and then nobody, and then everybody again. As his eyes focus, the crowd dwindles to two. They are both L. 

"Don't worry," one of them - the one who is not really L, but rather squirms after him like an overly-ambitious shadow - says. "I didn't do him any lasting damage."

"I hope you'll grant me pardon if I say I don't believe that at all."

That's the real L. All the others, the ones that arch around the room like kaleidoscope patterns, are just ugly copies. He likes the ugly original, body clenched, glancing concertedly in Light's direction as he dodges each blow systematically, countering with a few jabs of his own. The bright hallway lights cut in through the slit of the doorway, slicing across the claustrophobia of the dark. L's skin is grey and luminescent, moving like a spectral blur at the edges of his vision. Light tries to say his name but doesn't know if he succeeds, the word - simple and monosyllabic as it is - doubling back on him, flooding his already overwhelmed senses in a cocktail of disorientation and stunted longing.

"Really," the other letter says, the one who leads the dance with his laughing, bleeding performance, "cross my heart. I don't have any intention of killing him before he tells me what I, hah, want to know."

Light's hand twitches up toward them, their battling figures a dreamscape out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn't think he moves at all.

"And then?" L asks, voice catching, a thunk against the far wall following shortly. It feels like the last word on the last page of the book. There doesn't seem to be any more story after that. Light grasps for it but he can't touch it at all. His hands feel papery, throat parched. He wants to drown in pen ink. 

He doesn't stay conscious long enough to hear the answer to the question.

 

\---

 

"And then," B says, grin spreading like marmalade on toast - crumbs that dirty Persian rugs of an early morning, fire crackling, storm outside; all the trappings of a Victorian horror novel, with twice the artistry of most of them - "I'm probably going to pull a bit of a cliche and devour his soul." He shrugs jauntily. "That's what death gods do, isn't it?"

L's got him pinned to the wall, hand twisted in the scruff of his t-shirt, body crushing him top to bottom in a mix-and-match of unequal limbs. "What," he says, without intonation, or even full understanding.

The cavalry arrives a moment later, thundering out of the lax elevator and down the hall to Light's cell, and L doesn't get an answer to the question that he hadn't quite asked.

Everything happens at once: Wedy with a new gun and a team of armed reinforcements at her back, pointing it at both of them; Soichiro yelling, kneeling over his son and calling an ambulance that L knows Watari will politely turn away at the door; Aiber trundling noisily through, demanding to know what this is all about. He needs a haircut, L thinks, in the midst of the chaos, and supposes he could probably use one, too.

Maybe he'll shave it all off, just to see if B will follow the example. Just to see if Light will still pledge his heart. As if he would at this rate, as if it's still intact enough to lend out.

"Don't shoot," L says to these events, while they are still happening, "unless you absolutely have to."

Wedy meets his eyes and reality catches up with itself, noise filtering in through the blood rushing in his ears and everyone is talking so much, about so much, questions and no answers - "What happened?" "Who is that?" "Is Light-kun going to be okay?" "Are we in danger?" - and it's so much to keep track of that, stepping aside to let B down so that he can enter the fray more fully, he doesn't register until a moment too late exactly what look Wedy is giving him.

_Charlie's Rogue Angel_ , Aiber sometimes calls her, and L has never seen the film in question but had extrapolated the meaning of the nickname enough to appreciate it. It's fitting now. Always the rogue, and always the finest soldier. She never betrays, but she never takes an order to heart. She doesn't take this latest order at all.

Wedy shoots. She shoots once, twice, again and again until the whole of her barrel is emptied into B's chest, abdomen, throat. Her mouth isn't set grimly, doesn't seem more than casual, but here eyes are sniper-sharp and merciless. Mercy is such a foreigner in this place.

Beyond sputters, looks down at the dark blood soaking his white shirt, and then back up at her with bright, frozen eyes, still locked in their gratuitous smile. He deserves nothing less than this, L knows, and this knowledge plasters itself across the leaking crevices of his mind at once, spackling everything closed, clamping down on the raw panic that rises tidally in him, threatening to crash and bring down the whole house. His tower, built to last, and he's about to die, _B's about to die_. 

Someone is yelling. Maybe more than one person. The sound blocks out everything else, screaming like white noise through his head, and the image of B falling forward on his knees and slowly crumbling down to collapse face forward on the ground right over L's bare feet plays like a silent film reel. It's practically in black and white.

It's not happening.

But, of course it is, of course this is reality and he, in his eternal realism, is corroding at the center of it, a star in this old movie, and the only one left standing. Light is passed out bloody a few feet away and B is more than passed. He feels like the band-aid has been ripped off too soon and all that's underneath is raw flesh. The wound is still bleeding, never healed. B's blood is getting on his feet, the ends of his grey jeans.

"Don't shoot," he says quietly to himself, frowning, because what a stupid thing to say. But it's done, it's done, this has been coming for years and he couldn't do it so it's good that Wedy did, isn't it? _Isn't it?_ Now he just has to get her to put another full chamber in Light and all of his loose ends will be -

"I had to," she says firmly, walking over to him. L thinks maybe shrinking back would be overkill, but he has an instinctual urge to do it, anyway.

"You had to - you just killed a man!" someone is yelling. Maybe Ide, or Matsuda. Someone is coughing. It might be Light. Sirens. L hears them in his head, mingling with the church bells and mounting towards an ugly crescendo. "There are laws against this sort of thing, you can't just - " 

Wedy tucks her gun, empty and useless as it is now, into the waist of her pants. "There's something you have to see," she says, kneeling down next to B - B's _body_ \- but still looking up at L, "and sooner is better." She sounds so casual. L wonders if that's how he talks about death and has an errant urge to punch himself in the face.

And Wedy, he wants to punch her. He's not even a puncher, but it feels like the easiest thing right now, just swing and swing until his body stops working. First he has to move. 

Aiber comes slowly, uncharacteristically sober, over to them and crouches down beside Wedy. He presses his fingers to B's pulse, a formality more than anything, but then B's looked dead since he was born so better to make sure he's not faking. He was always so good at that, playing dead, playing the villain, playing anything; roles and roles and games and games. Maybe this is just another one.

Aiber removes his hand, obviously unsurprised by what he's felt. "Well," he says in a voice like a narrator, like this is the story and he's telling it because somebody has to, "today has been morbid."

If L had less of a stomach for this sort of thing, he'd turn around and throw up. It'd be satisfying, his performance for the shocked silent audience that's watching them. _Encore, encore!_  

Carefully, as if not to displace some precious valuable - precious dead thing - L slips his feet out from under B, examining the warm, wet places where he's splattered in blood. Everyone's looking at him as if waiting for a cue as to what to do. He's waiting for room the stop shaking. 

From off-center of the commotion, Light coughs again, body wracking helplessly under his father's unsteady hands, and everyone turns, more or less at once, to look at him. This is a new show, new star, and L feels relief for half a moment before some sort of accidentally activated protective instinct kicks in, and he turns sharply to the amassed officers and says, "We need to move him. I have a private doctor on call who I'm sure Watari has already contacted, so we'll get a room set up for that, as this one is no longer suitable."

He doesn't acknowledge B's dead body. He doesn't think he can.

"Wait, L," Wedy says stolidly from the floor. He ignores her.

Soichiro stands."I've called an ambulance," he begins. Everyone lining up to make their protests.

"He's _not leaving this building_ ," L pronounces, without looking at him, and starts toward the door. He has to get out of here. It's too small a cell and he needs to wash his feet. Someone needs to wash his feet. 

"You don't have the authority to decide that," Soichiro calls after him, breath uneven, speech spattered with pangs of his rage and disbelief. L doesn't dignify the assertion with a spoken response, just levels a glance over his shoulder that he hopes, through its disinterest, communicates exactly how much authority he has, and exactly how impossible it would be for any of them to try to stop him doing anything.

Just like Light had, before he was beaten and bloody on the floor, L has far more power than any one person rightly should have. And right now, he wants to drown in it. He wants to drown himself. He wants -

"Wait, goddammit," Wedy says, grabbing him suddenly as he reaches the parting sea of taskforce officers. He hadn't even noticed her get up. Blood on her clothes, on her wrists. How utterly ridiculous, like a bad goth band, the lot of them painted red and smelling like flesh. Her nails dig into his arm and he stops even though he could shake her grip.

He turns hurriedly, fully prepared to demand an explanation in ten words or less, but he doesn't get that far. 

Someone's coughing again but it's not Light. That's not Light's cough. Too nasal, too harsh, too familiar. 

Fever chills and bowls of luke-warm chicken soup and drooling on the bedclothes. Sickness had traveled around Wammy's house in his youth like paint on a child's hand, wiped on everything and everyone he touches. B and L had been bed-ridden and confined to their own rooms for spans of days, even weeks, but B would always sneak out at night and into L's, to share his suffering, make it communal, make it another of a whole history of games.

L knows his cough just like he knows his laugh and his yell and his handprints.

L knows a dead man from a live one, but there's a twitch of movement from the body that Aiber is still next to, muscles arching into action, and L knows that when Beyond Birthday pushes himself up into a kneeling position and grins at L, he is more that likely the latter. 

_Well,_ Aiber's words echo back at him, suddenly patently hilarious, _today has been morbid._

 

\---

**tbc.**  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow! because this whole 'b's dead, oh no he's not' thing doesn't happen every other chapter. oh wait. oops.
> 
> but okay, i just honestly hope this installation was passably decent, and also that you cherished its relative normalcy because next time? it's about to get weird. weirder. the canon shinigami realm is so fucking weird that i honestly couldn't help just going with it. see you then, beauties! and, as always, thank you for reading and for any and all reviews!


	28. evangelization

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, it's been four and a half weeks and absolutely no one is at all shocked. i hope you're all doing well and that the wait didn't cause you to totally forget this fic/lose any and all interest in it. i've been plugging along on it as always, but i got sidetracked by some other projects. here we are at last, anyway! you might be pleased to note that this chapter actually does this fic's summary and listed main pairing some, ahem, justice.
> 
> everything about shinigami culture and the upstairsmen is stuff i made up myself i don't even think i've read most of how to read? i'm the worst researcher. if i deserve any award superlative it's that. that said, calikarcha, gukku, and armonia justin beyondormason are actual shinigami listed in how to read, as are midora and the king. i made up the rest of them. some names in this and in future chapters, however, are taken/adjusted from biblical sources. yes, big fun, i know.
> 
> thank you for reading/reviewing/absolutely everything, as always. i love you guys and i hope this chapter is semi halfway decent? here's a totally half-hearted recap summary to ring your bells.
> 
> previously on nights: L, to everyone's loud and insistent displeasure, reunites with his team of professionals, integrating in among them his team of sketchy weirdos, and everything is going slightly awry until B tracks down light in his cell - who has been imprisoned, along with misa, at L's behest - at which point things go extremely awry, and wedy puts a stop to it with a tried and true method and a few bullets. elsewhere, syd is trying fruitlessly to reach beyond in japan and compare notes on the supernatural, ryuk and rem have gone off looking for answers of their own, and everyone's least favorite probable shinigami-killer is lurking at the edge of every other scene.

_"Our father who art in Heaven. Our father who art buried in the yard. Someone is digging your grave right now. Someone is drawing a bath to wash you clean."_

\- Richard Siken, _Crush_

 

\---

  

Very rarely is there an all-encompassing, underlying principle to a situation that ties everything up, makes all the pegs fit in their holes, clicks all the loose puzzle pieces together to reveal an answer, a truth. This revelation, however, comes very close.

Quillish remembers the fresh-faced Japanese nursing assistant who'd explained the results of B's physical to him in the cold January of '87, repeating blessing after enthusiastic blessing at the wonder of his survival. Should be dead, by all accounts, she'd said. _Kiseki_ , she'd called it, which in essence translates to _miracle_.

As Beyond twitches back to life on screen, live and kicking as he's ever been and shouting expletives at the surrounding audience, Quillish thinks that it isn't quite the word he'd use, though the same forces seem to be at work. So many cuts and bruises through-out his childhood, so much blood spilt and re-spilt, caution never learned. They had, silently but collectively, assumed then that it was simply a precocious daring natural to a child brought up by nothing but a dreary urban landscape and his own small, sharp mind.

This suggests something else. This suggests an innate singularity and otherworldliness of the sort that has always been palpable in B's presence, but never quite believable. But only the fool denies his own eyes and holds fast to his disproven principles. B had not died. The bullets had gone in and they had come out again, forced jerkily away by his spasming flesh.

The phone rings.

At Quillish's side, Mello, the second choice who has carved out his path to the front, starts at the noise. He seems more shocked by it than he had been by B's survival and subsequent self-regeneration, which he'd watched disinterestedly from Quillish's office chair as one would a television rerun, already dully familiar.

"I think it's L," he says, pointing at one of the monitors, when Quillish doesn't immediately answer, and surer than clockwork, there the boy - man, now - is, ear to a pilfered cellphone and looking directly into the camera lens, as if he can see Quillish and is impatient for his attention. 

"Hello," Quillish says flatly in greeting, nodding to Mello as he plucks up the receiver.

"Watari." L sounds winded, but not half as surprised as he'd be justified in being. "I'm going to need you to prep two more rooms for medical care and containment. Preferably as far away from each other as possible. I assume Doctor Nishikawa is en route?"

"Roger that," Quillish says, already flipping through the auxiliary feeds. "Would you like Amane to be moved as well?"

L opens his mouth on screen but nothing comes out for a few seconds. Then he shakes his head. "She stays where she is. Best to take one hurdle at a time. I'll check in on her once this situation is taken care of, but at the moment priority rests only with immediate threats."

"And at present I assume B is at the top of the list?" Quillish cradles the phone between his ear and shoulder, two hands pattering across the keyboard already, sending out orders to the taskforce and requesting another team of guards to be sent from the Tokyo police headquarters. 

On screen, L disappears from one camera feed, emerging on another which Quillish absentmindedly enlarges. In the background, there's another gunshot, echoing both from the low-level microphone volume of the cameras and, more clearly, from the phone. 

"Well, Wedy's just shot him again, but that doesn't seem to do much good in the long run, so I'd like to have him contained as soon as possible." He's so blase about the entirety of it. It's a stark contrast to the pale panic he'd exhibited in look and manner when he'd thought that B was dead, and Quillish notes that keenly, but doesn't remark of it. "We've got straightjackets on hand, yes? Send Mello down with one, and have him bring some more tea while he's at it. Everyone is very thirsty and terrified, so it'd be appreciated."

"Of course," Quillish says, typing out a message to send directly to the monitor in front of where Mello's slumped and viewing the proceedings with a look of bored juvenility. His small start when the words pop up on screen is vaguely gratifying, but his response is promptly sent.

 _Tea, got it. Straightjackets, where?_  

"Any interest in back-up?" Quillish asks L loosely, searching with one hand through the database of available operatives that could be brought in for support, and typing a response to Mello with the other: _5th floor storage. Key is in the desk drawer, labeled '5.' Code is the square root of 2704, with a zero on either side. Please hurry._  

Mello's already up and rifling through the drawer by the time L responds with a stumbling, "Excuse me?"

Quillish can't tell for the moment if he's genuinely confused or if he's making a tasteless pun, but the latter hardly seems likely given his expression, wide-eyed and uncomfortable on the screen. Quillish can't say he wasn't expecting this, but he'd at least foreseen a longer period of development. 

Well, regardless, B's presence is fulfilling its function.

"Sorry," Quillish says, maintaining professionalism, "that was poor word choice. I meant to ask if you'd like to call any of your on-retainer operatives to help out with the situation. No reference to Beyond intended."

"Right," L says, regaining his balance quickly, "right. Put in some calls. I'm not sure yet, but the option is appealing. It's only the matter of revealing the identity of Kira to more people than strictly necessary. In the meantime, since they have no immediate means of killing or harming us - other than bodily, of course, which neither Light nor Misa seem particularly disposed towards - I think it would be best to regulate the issue of dealing with them to the back-burner, and before anything else get B sorted and stored somewhere secure. Do you think he'll talk?"

Quillish hums conversationally, even as he continues his sprawling search through their databases. "About the nature of his ability? Do you think it's especially likely that he even knows?" He tracks Mello's progress on the camera feed. He's running in the halls but Quillish is willing to let that slip on account of emergency supernatural hijinks.

"He was a smart boy and he's grown into a smart man. I think it's likely that he knows something, and I'm starting to have my own suspicions, as well. Among other things, I'd also like to ask exactly how he found out about my disappearance, escaped jail, and evaded capture for so long. Any theories?" L's walking down a long hall now. Quillish doesn't recognize it, but the feed is labeled B28.

"I'm afraid I haven't need of any," he says, with as little intonation lent to the words as he can manage without mirroring L's speech patterns. "I know how he did it. I helped him." 

L stops, his figure slowing in the hallway, the scraping sounds of his shuffling steps ceasing quickly in the background. He responds with the silence that Quillish expects, sound drained, cold and angry and processing through the information at lightning speed. L, the supercomputer; L, the boy genius. What's impressive at eight isn't half so at twenty-five. He's growing old, getting frail. And, worse than that, predictable. Quillish knows the tirade that's coming, the quiet storm, the icy orders and lazy scorn. Little tantrums and a lot of noise, things he should have outgrown by now.

Quillish likes knowing the formula, though. He likes entering a program and watching the results spurred to life across the screen. This is a lot like that.

Except it is not like that at all, because L doesn't do any of what he expects.

Instead, he sighs, breezy as you please, says, "Oh," and hangs up the phone.

 

\---

 

Ryuk - trailing dodgily after Rem through the the tiny slip of a doorway where worlds meet and the bright frenzy of time stagnates into a dank forever, or whatever - finds the Shinigami Realm more active and, well, _alive_ than he's seen it in a full thousand years. Give or take a few hundred. 

"Hey, guys!" he calls buoyantly to a roaring group of maybe half a dozen that charges past them, led giddily by Armonia Justin Beyondormason, the King's technical right hand who normally spends more time cataloguing his library of precious metals than seeing to his King. The task is left mostly, by process of bored elimination, to Midora. He's not known to have left his cove of bejeweled seclusion in years, really, but here he is, directing the advance of a cackling band of his fellow court members towards the throne room. 

One member of the group, a yapping little terrier sort of death god from the lower ranks, yells at him, "Come on, Ryuk, you'll miss it!" before turning back around to gasp his way after his fellows.

Ryuk grins, pushing off of the craggy cliff face they'd arrived on, but Rem's long grey fingers catch his arm. "Wait," she says, low and dull as ever.

Ryuk rolls his eyes. "For what? Come on, we're gonna miss it!"

He thrums, dead old bones feeling more excited to be in this place than he remembers ever being. The human world, full of its technological mysteries and deliciously fresh fruit, provides an endless sequence of distanced entertainment, but he is not a part of it and plays no solid role in the action. Here is where he is from, swamped in the dark essence he was born within, blah blah blah, the purity of death, _whatever_ \- folks like Armonia can wax on about it all they like, but he's never been much interested in learning the past of his species when they barely even have a _present_.

Not so, anymore. Something is happening, and all Ryuk has ever really wanted is that.

Rem, however, does not let go of him. "We don't even know what _it_ is," she whispers, deep and dark like this place. Jeez, he'd sort of missed this place. 

"So?" Ryuk says. "You wanted to go to the throne room anyway, right? That's why we came here, isn't it? Actually," he continues, scratching his chin, "how _did_ we come here? We shouldn't be able to leave earth without being summoned, unless - "

"Unless the Note isn't of Earth anymore," Rem finishes for him, heavily. Her one eye closes slowly, and Ryuk can tell she is thinking and hopes she's doing it well, because this really is a tangle they've gotten into. "Misa's Note was stolen, and likely not by a human." 

Ryuk grins. Damn, he loves a good tangle.

"Okay, but what about the other one? It's still locked up in the headquarters, I'm pretty sure. Light still had his memories last I checked, anyway."

Another group of their noisy neighbors appears from over the cliffside, chatting with dogged interest about the council that the King has called, requesting that all beings native to Death's lower reaches, and thus all creatures that he has dominion over, appear in his court or else be turned over to the Upstairsmen.

"Maybe," Rem says, letting go of Ryuk finally to spread her wings and join his journey upwards, "we were, in fact, summoned."

Ryuk grins wider. Maybe, maybe. Who cares, though? As long as something _interesting_ happens, which is inevitable if the Upstairsmen are involved, he'll be happy as a bottomdweller.

 

\---

 

Light's first thought when he wakes is that everything is whiter than it should be, the world fading in around him with one pale shade after another, crisp sheets melting into bright walls melting into shiny linoleum.

His second thought is that his nose is broken. 

Sitting up, he processes his surroundings just enough to realize that he's in a different room than he had been, hooked up to an IV and plastered with crinkly medical tape. Every version of L is gone, along with the frantic blur of his father, repeating his name over and over as if on loop, that had hovered just out of the reaches of his conscious mind. 

He blinks, scans the room quickly and finds the outlying grey of the camera pointed directly at him. He imagines L on the other side of it, studying him as he'd always done and had been unable to do for nearly a month there without the inevitability of Light watching him back just as hard. Jesus, he must be enjoying a long awaited power-trip right about now.

Light's facial bones ache, his ribs stinging as he moves, but he ignores any and all discomfort in favor of positioning himself as casually, _appealingly_ , as possible, so that when he speaks, there can be no mistake as to who it's aimed at.  

Facing directly into the camera and leaving room for alternate interpretations of his words - whether innocence or guilt is presumed - he says, "I'm ready when you are, asshole."

 

\---

 

One, two, three, _flatline_. A buzzing, low and screeching through him, but then breath. Then a _ba-dump_. Ba-dump, ba-dump. Jagged lines on the heart monitor and he gasps, lungs flaring open, hungry to fill his empty places, all empty places and emptying; in out in out in out; he's going to die and has died and is undying, heh, that's funny, sounds like _untying_ and that's what this feels like now. His eyes open and he sees the wide open sky, birds frozen mid-flight, stars blurry - but it's all on the same level, not spread out like the universe, hurdling and lashing and blundering through space and time, is supposed to be.

As his vision focuses, he realizes that what he's looking at is a ceiling, speckled with dust and small marks. Not the universe.

Why not? What separates the plaster and paint from the macrocosmic scope of tumbling eternity, and where does this separation begin and end? What separates him from the ceiling, the stars, the scratchy white material latching him up and keeping him locked to the mattress that he's on. 

He jerks, trying to get loose. The lock is so tight and he is the key but where is the keyhole?

He needs to fill his empty places.

"L," he croaks, voice hardly above a parched whisper. _He shot me_ , he thinks, even though it had been Wedy with the gun, Wedy and her brand new bullets. Bang, bang, bang. Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump. His heart is beating and why is there only one of those? He swears he's had two hearts all of his life. Only one is in him, but he has two. 

"L," he says again, and laughs.

So, cat's out of the bag. Is he the cat or is he the bag? Which one of those things can die? He is not that one. If he takes Schrodinger into account, he is both the cat and not the cat. He is both alive and not alive and he has always been both of those things and has never been either.

There is no one in the room. Well, him, yes. And Death, maybe, but that's just a quaint little tickling sensation behind his ears, whispering wordless truths to him like lullabies. Orange soda and a whole rotting microscopic universe inside of a cell outside of forever. It's manifesting in the body of a beauty queen, but what it really is is much older than that. It's in him.

He doesn't know what it is.

"L." He lurches forward, tautly restrained body rattling into action against the skin of his white casket, nipping at the air, at the camera across the room that sears him with its eyes. He's watching, he's watching, he's _got to be watching_. Couldn't be far away. World would go wrong, if that were the case.

World has never gone right.

"Come and find me," B tells the camera lens and it doesn't blink, stares head on at him without response. But it hears.

L hears him, and B waits.

 

\---

 

Misa opens her eyes to a dim, comforting light, like the first rays of morning kicking up over the horizon after a 6 AM work-out, muscles still breathing heavy with life, exertion, heart beating up a storm that teaches her, if only for the moment, how to love herself. That sort of thing only comes in small, slippery waves. She tries to hold on, but then the sun rises and daylight is cold and everyone is gone away and she only has her hands, the job, and long hours with which to put them together and try to make something beautiful.

She doesn't feel beautiful now. She feels weak, sleepy, drenched in sweat. She pushes herself up, trying to get her bearings; squinting at the light source, a thin wire hung from the ceiling burning with a low watt bulb.

L is beside her. 

He's in a slate grey sweater, legs crossed agura-style, knees hanging awkwardly off the sides of the plastic folding chair at her bedside. He's got a small china cup and saucer balanced on one thigh. Studying her concertedly, his expression doesn't change even as he holds the cup out to her. 

"Tea?"

Misa just stares at his hands, the offering, then shakes her head. Leaning back against the cold wall behind her, she says after a moment, "Water?"

He nods, turning briefly to signal in the opposite direction, from which a camera watches them, blinking its rhythmic red light. "It's coming," he says. It's already more hospitality than she'd gotten the last time he'd held her captive.

Captive? L had been the captive. Why, again? Her head is all muggy and she can't get her thoughts in order. She feels like she's missing an important item, her keys or her cell phone or some other essential like that, but she can't quite figure out what it could be. Just out of her reach, like the sun, setting just under the horizon, suddenly only visible in radiating, darkening waves, then snuffed out. 

"Where are we?" she says, even though she knows. It's familiar. She'd never seen her surroundings when he'd held her originally under suspicion of being Kira, but the drafty, empty, cold air is something she'd grown intimate with, and even if its not the same place it's the same situation. What she really wants to say is, _"Why are we?"_ Why back to this again? Hadn't they been proven innocent? Isn't the whole world different now, L chained up in a hall and them back to their lives.

She and Light, a life together. The best question is, _"Where is he?"_ but she's afraid to ask that.

"Back at headquarters," L says simply, wasting little time, as if knowing that she knows. "And yes, before you worry yourself, he's fine. A bit banged up, but alive and well as ever he's been." He scratches his chin.

Her mind catches on the phrase _banged up,_ skipping over the assurances of good health. "What did you do to him?" she asks quickly, voice hoarse and wispy. She wishes she were louder.

L rolls his eyes, but it's a familiar gesture and almost comfortable, their rapport, slowly and unsteadily built up over the course of their respective confinements, still not dissipated even in these drastically altered circumstances. He is a familiar face, after all, and distinct in his particularity of actually _having_ a face, unlike the ranks of helmeted guards that have been handling her for the past several hours, days even. She's not sure how much time it's been. Too long away from Light, certainly.

"The assumption that I'm at fault is warranted, I'm sure, given history and its tendency to repeat," L murmurs, chewing on his thumb between the words, muffling them slightly, "and I am partially responsible, if not wholly, but the threat is contained, and locked down just as well, if not better, than Light and yourself."

There's a knock on the door then, before Misa can reply, and L stands stiffly to go and answer it. Some veiled guard or another hands him a glassy pitcher and a stack of plastic cups, and he balances it all uneasily against his chest as he makes his way back, pouring her a cup of water on the way, and handing it off when he's back at her side, folding up into his chair once again.

She drinks deep, forgetting for the moment about her worry, draining the cup and holding it out for more in a matter of second, then sipping greedily from the second serving. She coughs, sputters slightly, droplets falling from her lips and off her chin, getting on the off-white material of the shirt she'd been provided with. She feels as if she's been asleep for a long time, even though she'd dipped into consciousness for long grey hours spent staring at the ceiling and counting off wrong turns on her fingers and toes.

Shouldn't have called him to the diner. Shouldn't have gone to Takada's. Shouldn't have sent him out for milk. Shouldn't have let him out of her sight. Maybe if she'd made him stay he'd still be with her now.

She can't finish her second cup of water, so she just holds it in her lap, staring down at the ripples that form when she shifts.

L says, "I have a problem." He clears his throat, shifting his head to tip it in the opposite direction. "Actually, you have a bigger problem. Light, too. The two of you are up for mass murder and since he kidnapped me and tipped his whole hand, I have no interest in proving his guilt or yours to the general populous with showy manipulation tactics. I just want you gone. Off my plate. Light's done for, there's no other way about it, but since I could feasibly knock you down to being charged as an accessory, there's a lot more leeway there." He scratches his chin casually. "But here arises my problem."

"What, the fact that you're crazy?" Misa snaps, knocking the cup with the force of her words and sending a cool spill across her lap. She rights it, barely taking notice. "Light's _not_ Kira and neither am I! How many times do we have to go through this?"

L blinks, opening his mouth and then closing it again. "I was going to say it's that you know my name, but this willful ignorance is also a bother. I can turn the cameras off, if you want, but it's only Watari watching, and there's really no need to play dumb now, not after all that happened back during my imprisonment with the two of you. Even if you deny it until the end, I can and will have you executed. Better to take your chances with bargaining than to hold fast to a truth that we both know is baseless and empty, don't you think?"

Misa sits fully upright, the cup falling completely off of the bed and bouncing crinkled onto the tile floor. "I don't know what weirdo genius reverse psychology thing you're trying to do, but I'm not falling for it, okay?" 

She hears her voice reaching a helium pitch, nothing like the voice inside her head that repeats its slow sweet prayers, and she thinks the words that come out are all wrong but she doesn't know why. It's like there are two of her but only one of them can talk out loud.

"Evidently," L says slowly. "Although I think, were it a manipulation, this would only qualify as regular psychology."

"Shut-up," Misa says, because she doesn't know what else to say.

L's eyebrows raise, moving at inconsistent rates so that his expression is slightly slanted. "Sorry, can't possibly." He stands then, pushing himself off of the chair with something like a brief flash of pain, but then it's gone in an instant, face blank and wondering again.

He paces back and forth a few times; once, twice, again and again; then moves back to her side to tug his chair over to the opposite end of the room, into the far corner where the camera is mounted. With quick precision, he climbs up, hands moving in white streaks across the machinery, dismantling it with a few tweaking metal sounds. Stepping off the chair, he sets something metallic and wiry down on it, another tiny part of the world that Misa doesn't understand. 

The tiny parts add up. Her head hurts.

L says, "Honestly, Misa," and something in her throat quivers; it's rare that he says her first name, even rarer that it's in such a curious and emotive tone, far and away separate from his flat voice of interrogation. 

She wonders for a moment whether he'd taken away the camera for her sake, or for his own. Then she starts crying. 

She doesn't mean to and she doesn't understand and she says, "I don't understand," and L moves closer, ducking down beside the bed and frowning at her, evidently confused, but maybe less confused than she is. She wipes at her eyes. "Honestly, I don't know. I don't know how I know your name or why we took you with us, we just _did_." She breathes deep, sucking back her tears, feeling gross, glad Light can't see her like this. "It had nothing to do with Kira, though." She wipes her eyes, the sting in her sinuses tapering off.

She wants to say something else but she can't think of anything, feels embarrassed and a little annoyed that she cares how she looks in front of him, but it had been so important to be a wall, stony and impregnable, before. A wall between he and Light. She knows why they took him, why the bedsheets and the shampoo and the gas station coffee, but she doesn't like to think of it in clearer terms, to pinpoint the words and emotions, play back hazy hate-fueled mornings, the smell of sweat that isn't hers filling the room.

"Hmm," L says, "this again."

Misa pulls her blankets up, covering most of her torso, trying to hide in some way that she doesn't really understand. "What? This what?"

He taps his lip thoughtfully. Always thinking, haywire and baseless, but usually right. "Memories, gone. You gave it up. He must have had you give it up, which means he probably gave it up, too." He scratches his chin. "Same old tricks. He's just as tired as I am, clearly. Past that point of thinking up some clever, destroying plan. Huh." He stands up, body straightening, arching for a moment like a bow before he settles back in the slump. His body language means something but she doesn't know what.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she tells him, even though she's forming some idea. Pulling words from previous conversations - remember, remember, _remember_ \- the surety and the fear that had counterbalanced the confused emptiness. She can feel hollows where the knowing had been, but it's all gone now.

L nods, turning to go, seemingly caught up in something new, far off and away from her, and it's dragging him in its direction. "No, you wouldn't," he mumbles. 

He's almost to the door when she says, loudly and clearly, speaking to make herself heard, "L Lawliet."

He stops, briefly frozen mid-stride, then turns on his heel to face her again, head tipping sideways. His eyes are wide and his interest seems to have drifted rather sharply back to her. "Yes?"

"That's your name," Misa says. She doesn't know what she's proving or what she isn't. Mostly, she decides, she doesn't want to be left alone again.

He blinks at her, as if trying to readjust something in him. "Yes," he repeats, slower this time. "Are you threatening me?" 

"No. Maybe. I don't think so." Misa pulls the blanket tighter around her, the fabric stretching cooly against her bare arms. "Can I have some breakfast?" 

"It's the middle of the night." 

Misa takes too long to process the words, and when she does she has too much trouble rationalizing them with the world that she'd been stolen from, that by the time she's organized her thoughts enough to decide to edit her request to include dinner, he's already shrugged, turned back to the door, and called back to her, "I'll have Watari make you breakfast as soon as possible."

 

\---

 

"Catastrophe!" the King bellows out at the crowd before him, which clogs the golden glow of the throne room with its greying aura, rotting and cackling at once. "Catastrophe Englo!" 

A creature constructed entirely out of moon rock raises its craggy hand near the back of the audience. "Present, your Majesty," he hisses, voice reverberating up into the hollow ceiling, bouncing between shards of sunlight and dips of starless night. 

"Catastrophe," the King commands, waving his tiny hand, whether gesturing forward or backward it's hard for Rem to tell from her mid-range position in the audience, "bring me the scriptures."

There's an awed silence from the crowd, swelling slowly into a low grumble of discussion, spreading out in all directions around the throne room.

"Scriptures," Ryuk stage whispers to her. "Cool!" 

Rem grunts her assent, gesturing his line of sight back up to the raised platform of the court, where Castastrophe Englo, Royal Historian to the Throne, is muttering lowly into the King's scrunched ear. The spectacle, hushed and uneventful as it is, is drawing rapt attention from every bright and beady eye in the chamber. 

"What?" the King grunts at Catastrophe. "Speak up!"

 "I," Catastrophe stutters, bowing lowly, silvery hands clasped above his head imploringly, "I can get them back, I just - it's not - "

"He lost the scriptures to Calikarcha in a game of dice two centuries ago!" Gukku, a notorious truth-sayer and scoundrel of the realm, cackles up from the front of the crowd, prompting a wild chorus of, "Truth, truth!" from a number of the surrounding attendees, some of them in approbation, but the majority deprecatingly so, truth being a highly undervalued commodity among death's populous.

Shinigami do not, as a general social rule, lie, but they also place little stock in the truth. The lack of distinction between the real and unreal, facts and falsehoods, makes directly seeking and spreading either a disreputable practice. Words in this realm are not chiefly used definitionally, to communicate and to describe, but rather as an act of recreation, made routine by a millennia of practice. The state of things doesn't need to be said, it simply is.

"Truth, truth, truth!" the crowd bellows, a choir of voices varying in tone and volume, language and frequency. Someone scaly and frowning by Rem's knees whispers it silkily along with the group.

"Silence!" the King cries tinnily, but it's drowned out by a few hundred other voices. It's only Midora, rolling across the platform, lizard-like and hissing her loud laugh, that quiets the room. "Silence," the King says again, puffing himself up. "Out of my sight," he says to Catastrophe, who is already scrambling away. "Now, where is Calikarcha? Bring him to me."

There's more murmuring, the whole room rustling with the gleeful unease of a mystery. Leaning over towards her, Ryuk says, "I saw him around pretty recently. Before I went down to the human world and dropped my note. Should I say something? I wanna say something but I don't want everybody looking at me. Rem, will you say it for me?" He tugs on a fleshy strand of what Misa calls her hair. Rem winces, shrugging him off.

"No." She doesn't want to speak. She wants to listen. She wants to know what's happening, but with this bunch of clowns there's no telling how long it'll take them to get anywhere. She can't stay here for that long. The tragedy in the world she's set aside, _Misa's tragedy_ , is nothing that she can spare her attention from for longer than strictly necessary.

She just wants to know what _it_ is, down there, causing havoc. She wants to know what it is and what to do about it. How to save her from it. That's all.

"He's not here," Armonia Justin Beyondormason pronounces idly from his space at the right of the King's platform, sprawled lazily against the butter-glow of the marble steps, examining one of his jeweled claws and shining it with spittle from the mouth of his assistant, Lethargia, who is a lazy, singing, rabbit-eared being of the lowest caste. "Calikarcha demurred," he continues, when the chamber falls to a hush and every bit of attention is his. "He said that his bones were achey and that they needed resting."

Hanging there, the King's little hands begin to shake erratically, as if taken by a sudden storm of emotion. Hard for him to handle, as _feeling_ is a little-experienced phenomenon among the royals of the Shinigami World. "Resting!" he shouts.

"Resting! Resting!" the crowd hoots and howls back, taken up in the same storm of emotion, if manufactured for the thrill rather than stemming from true shock and outrage.

"What shall be done about this?" the King asks, shaking with excitement, evidently egged on by the sentiments of his subjects. He looks side to side, eyes falling on Midora. "Well?"

She shrugs, grinning her alligator grin. "We could send him a strongly worded letter?"

The excitement momentarily drains from the King's figure at the prospect of such an eventuality. He hangs dejectedly. "Letter?" he asks. Notoriously old and traditionalist, the King is widely known to loath all systems of writing. He'd luckily stocked up on years before Death had become a Note and hardly has any need to write in his. It is widely disputed, in fact, whether or not he even has one.

"I think," Armonia says in his hollow and echoey voice, rising above the various suggestions of the general populous, "that we should destroy him utterly. His eyeballs would make beautiful rubies."

The King stares at him long and hard, as if insulted, but slowly his expression melds into one of joyous approval. He claps his tiny hands rhythmically, the sound echoing through the throne room. "Destruction," he pronounces. The crowd echoes him.

Rem rolls her eyes. Things never do change, no matter how many millennia go by. Maybe that's why the human species has only gotten more massive and uncontrollable, while creatures of their deathly ilk have dwindled steadily in number for a grim forever. This room, glinting and gold, used to be an infinity larger than it now is. They used to expand endlessly on in all directions. 

Now, what they have here - save maybe Calikarcha, and other stragglers like him - is all there is. 

Rem's not sure if she's relieved or not. Maybe dying out is the best thing that can happen to Death.

"I disagree."

The crags of white-gold in the ceiling are filled, round and echoey, with the thrum of her voice, spreading out to every being in attendance. Rem hadn't expected her words to be so loud, but there they are, out in the air and confronting her, drawing the eyes and snapping teeth of her fellow Shinigami. Next to her, Ryuk's face is wide with excitement. He gives her a thumbs-up, then ducks down and away, out of the line of general sight.

"Rem?" the King says, squinting like the old man he is, out into the throng that surrounds her. "Rem, that is your name, yes? You were on loan to the human world, correct?" She nods, but whether he sees her or not it doesn't seem to matter, for he continues on without pause. "And yet, here you are, in court where you should be, whereas Calikarcha is well within reach, and still absent. It's worthy of destruction."

Rem feels the grimy air whistling around in her throat. She bows her head. "Yes, Majesty. I do admit he is at fault, but I also believe that his punishment is a small concern in comparison to what is going on in the human world now, and that issue should take precedence in the court." She can feel the taint of interest spiking up around her, and she uses that to push forward, her voice gaining volume. "Is that not why you called this convention in the first place?"

The Shinigami titter excitedly around her. The King frowns, studies her, and then very suddenly and with his eyes bugging disproportionately to the whole of his body, says, "Yes! Yes, yes! An Abomination!" He looks around, nearly in a panic. "Catastrophe!" he yells, a rehash of his opening line. "Catastrophe Englo, the scriptures!"

"Lost, Majesty," Midora reminds him lazily, a smirking tilt to her voice.

"Lost!" the King proclaims, as he remembers. 

"Lost, lost, lost!" The crowd takes up this new chant with excitable ease.

"Lost," Rem agrees, steeling herself to speak as loudly as possible, breaking through the din, "but not strictly necessary. Why read the scriptures that the Upstairsmen have written when we could simply - well, not to be indelicate - ask them directly?"

This causes complete and utter silence. Midora smiles. The King's eyes go even wider. The beings around her are sharply still, motionless and poised with shock and horror and, perhaps, even sickly pleasure. Rem thinks for a moment that she has made a terrible, terrible mistake.

Then Armonia, utterly casually, and without a glance up, says, "Bad idea."

Someone from far behind her growls back, "Good idea!"

Chaos flares up, noise and motion, a whirling tide of gleeful disagreement, the general populous of the realm energized by the prospect of having something to rant and riot about. All decisions of their species used to be decided through strange competitions: roaring the loudest, counting the fastest, killing the prettiest humans, or the ugliest, or the strangest. As their society fell slowly and soundlessly to ruin, the number of social issues needing deciding tapered off, and gambling and games became simply a matter of sport, used to fill the endless years, rather than one of lawful importance.

With the noise level as it is, the court looks to Rem to be shaping up for the first roaring competition in a number of years, voices banning together on all sides - a _yes_ here, a _no_ there, and a lot of undecided howling for howling's sake - all rising in a fever pitch that she hadn't quite intended -

And then it stops. 

Even in the throne room, brilliant and bright as it is, the realm of the death gods is cold, but a sudden shaft of sunny warmth beams down from outside the leaky crevices at the top, heating the bloodless arrangement of unliving bodies with an intrusive glow. Up is in the air. They are the Below, and the Above is encroaching swiftly.

This is what Rem had wanted but she is suddenly petrified.

The whole chamber is silent, frozen stiff with a fearful awe. Grandeur, sick and suffocating, descends like an sheet of melting snow. The quiet is mounting, overloading the room, the pitch of emptiness ascending sharply into a whistle that doesn't register to the ears, but sends the bloodless, bony, maniacal dark in every being in attendance spinning in horror of the approaching light.

The locked doors at the end of the throne room open. The King grits his teeth. Six pairs of wings and four pairs of eyes, all interconnected, enter, laughing harmonically though they have no mouth. This is the closest Rem, and she assumes most of her fellow Shinigami, has ever been to an Upstairsman. 

The Wings say, in a voice like a thousand hymnals all playing at once, "Greetings, lowly creatures! What seems to be the problem?" 

Armonia Justin Beyondormason, from his seat to the right of the throne, mumbles, "Shit."

 

\---

 

Mello is alone with upwards of a hundred camera feeds.

Watari is in the process of getting the doctor and two assistant nurses that they'd flown in earlier this evening - or rather, yesterday, as it's past midnight by now - settled into their accommodations, after their respective examinations of Light Yagami and B, and treatment of Wedy's injuries, who is now asleep in a suit on the 19th floor. The burly Frenchman is naked in an armchair by her bed, smoking a cigarette and reading a magazine. He still has red marks on his back from the violent, tearful, laughing sex they'd had earlier. Mello had tried not to look, but he had.

Half of the Japanese investigators are asleep in their rooms on the 15th floor, except for Matsuda and another who's name he can't remember, who sit on the sofa in the main suite, watching a late night game show on the enormous television. All stayed the night except for the chief, who had gone home to visit his family. Apparently he is Kira's father. Apparently he's upset. Go figure.

Kira has spoken once in all of the time since he'd woken up, and Mello doesn't think that he was the intended recipient for the message. He'd written it down on a notepad that Watari had given him, because those had been his instructions, but even though he'd held him up when he'd been sick and delirious, Mello still doesn't think he's going to be comfortable reciting it to L. Even in someone else's words, it's hard to directly call your life's inspiration and childhood idol an asshole.

Comparatively, B has been yelling L's name, and a lot of semi-related nonsense, for the past half an hour. Mello's had to mute him. He feels bad in part, but also somewhat self-satisfied. It's nice to have the beast corralled, even if by someone else.

L had been talking to Misa Amane, the apparent Second Kira, in her cell. Then he'd walked very close to the camera, played around a bit, and disappeared. Screen gone silver with static. Mello had thought about calling Watari about it, but had ultimately decided to wait and see if it would come back on.

It hadn't.

Instead, L emerges a few minutes later in the hallway outside Amane's room, and looks directly into the camera to say, "Watari, please have someone come down and fix the camera in Misa's room." The he continues down the hall.

Mello dials half of Watari's number before pausing, hurriedly deleting it, and dialing L's. He can hear his phone ringing in the video, but L doesn't answer it, just pulls it out, raises his eyebrows, and looks back at the camera. "Can't talk now. Busy. Call again if it's urgent."

Mello doesn't call again. 

He instead watches, hunched over in Watari's large sunken roller chair, as L flits from screen to screen. Down two halls, a series of left turns, and to the third door on the right-hand side. He punches in the door-code, swipes the key card, and enters one of the two medical cells currently in use. It's not the one with Beyond Birthday in it.

Mello's eyes shift to Light's camera feed. He watches him sit up in bed, roused from a thin sleep, as L appears as a dim shape in the corner, growing quickly larger. There's only a second for Mello to process what's happening before L reaches up, covers the lens with his hands and _pulls_. Then the screen goes blank with static.

Mello sighs, rolling his eyes, and dials Watari, this time positive that he has something to report.

 

\---

 

The door opens.

Light has been counting up and down from one hundred, he has been devising plans of escape and rewriting biblical scenes with new words, inserting new characters; Mary Magdalene recast as a different kind of whore, still repentant, but not half so cooperative. Something is whispering in him and he thinks he's got hunger pangs but those might just be bruised ribs. He hasn't had any visitors in this cell who weren't unresponsive nurses comes to change his bandages and adjust his IV. He'd insisted they take him off the pain meds, had struggled ceaselessly to retain his newfound coherence, and he'd won that battle, if not the whole war.

The quiet has made his mind lonely, and sent it seeking for company. He'd thought he could hear dead things whispering to him at some points, and had whispered Ryuk's name into the bright abyss above him, but gotten no response. 

Then the door opens. 

This is the moment he'd been waiting for in the hours since he'd woken up. He'd mostly given up the hope for an answer to his challenge, but here it is. 

The door opens and L is standing there and L looks at him for only a moment, doesn't even meet his eyes, before he turns and charges to the corner where the sole camera is mounted, and swiftly tears it from the wall with a single jerk and a grunt of exertion. 

He's wearing grey and green. He looks all wrong. The arch of his back has deflated into that familiar forced slump and Light wants to jerk his posture back into honesty. Light wants to hit him in the head with a metal pipe. Light wants to yell at him, tell him he's wrong, tell him how he's going to die and then show him.

L turns back around to look at him, dropping the scrap-heap of machinery on the ground next to him. It makes a loud clanging sound. Light's skin is tingling. He says L's name, but he's not sure it comes out and he's not sure he'd wanted it to, anyway. 

 _Fucker_ , he thinks, as L takes heavy steps towards him, and Light puts his arms up, bracing for a hit, and is stalled more by confusion than anything else when L lurches forward, takes his face in his hands and says simply, "You're Kira," while looking deeply, probingly, into Light's eyes.

Light doesn't know what to say to that, but L doesn't seem to be looking for a response, just continues on swiftly with what sounds like a pre-planned speech: 

"I know you think you're not, but you are and I don't have time to skip around the objections and the heartfelt confusion. You're Kira, the original, the ultimate, the god of the new world, et cetera, et cetera. There's a whole speech that goes with it but I can't remember it right now. With or without your memories I am going to prosecute you as Kira, so you might as well restore them, because isn't it better to go down for the cause you've staked your life on _knowing_ what it is, than defiant with clueless innocence?"

Light blinks at him. This is not what he'd been expecting, and he's trying to form a proper rejection for L's brilliantly idiotic theory that he's somehow given up his memories, when he's shaken roughly by the the grip on his head. L does seem to want an answer this time around, so Light dubiously says, "Yes?"

The warmth of L's palms on his cheeks is suffocating. Light is mostly stuck deciding where to punch him and how many times. Should he bleed? Of course he should bleed. Light has done that and more for him. But first -

"Right, so I want you to tell me exactly what you did in the twenty four hours prior to your capture, so I can figure out what you did with the Notebook, and how I can get it back, because this whole memoryless schtick is not going to get you far with me this time." L jerks Light's face again, pulling him closer, seemingly for no other purpose than emphasis. His knees are digging into the mattress, making dips and shadows. "Did you really think that if you threw out your awareness of the situation it would diminish my resolve to have you captured and killed? Did you think you could look at me with your pretty, clueless eyes and I'd let it all go?" He shakes him again. Light coughs. His's fractured facial bones ache and maybe that's what L wants.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Light spits at him, trying to shake out of his grip, but that's mostly a lie, because he knows what's happening, knows that for whatever reason L thinks that he is not himself, but the _other_ him, the him that is helpless and afraid of himself, afraid to be the killer that he is and has to be. He knows what L is talking about, and he says what he says because it can be interpreted as consistent with a lack of memory. 

And maybe, if L already believes it, that's what he wants to go for. Just for the moment. Just to see what will happen.

L's fingers hurt. They're digging into his jaw bone, one thumb harshly jabbing his lip, and Light hates him and Light missed this.

L says, "Did you think I'd love you too much to watch you hang?" His eyes are dark and raging, mouth thin, he looks on the edge of a panic attack, a ferocious act of destruction - this is a man Light knows and knows well,a man who would kill him with his bare hands in a cell if he gave him a reason to, and a man that he, for half a moment, almost wants to. 

 _Kill_ _me if you can_ , he thinks, jerking back, out of L's grip, for a view of his internal struggle writhing itself into the external, and L follows him.

"Did you, you stupid little child?" he demands of Light. 

And Light almost grins, because he's not the stupid one, not here, but instead he lets his expression cave in, eyes watering, and he grits, "Yes," and tries to turn away. _Heartbroken_. In love with a man and not understanding the violence that's being enacted on him. Light hasn't had occasion to put his acting skills to good use around L for a long while, but it's with tickling, gratified ecstasy that he does.

And L falls for it. Light can see it in his face, right before he dives for him again. Light tries not the laugh. Death is laughing with him, just as silent, but taking up the whole room. L is going to brutalize him and Light is going to act the beautiful martyr, and then he'll be sorry, _so sorry_ , and he'll understand what he's done, what he is and exactly how Light is going to purify him of his sin, his horrible ugly dark dirty sickening awful awful _awful_ - 

L kisses him.

He grabs Light's face and, sharp, shy, adoring, and destroying, presses their lips together. His hands are feathery, almost petting, sifting through Light's grimy, sweat-stiff hair, caressingly, desperately, reverted to the frail beast of a man that Light has known and unknown, has carved into his insides like a brand. He doesn't, he doesn't want to - wants to _punish_ \- but he kisses him back.

Grabs him close. Pulls him on top of him, arms grappling, legs wrapping, letting L push him down, forehead resting against his. L is shaking a little. He takes off his own shirt, worn material thrown over his head and onto the floor, pressing his hard cock into Light's lap through his jeans. Foreign material, much nicer than what he usually wears. Light claws his back. Not sure if he'd left marks, so he scratches again, harder. L winces and kisses him more viciously, sadder, faster, depleting himself, pouring it all into and onto Light.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, breathless, coughing onto Light's neck, chest. Disgusting. Light pulls him closer, hips jabbing up, desperate for the contact and hating it and loving the fact that he hates it, because this is familiar, this is true love at it's truest, it's ugliest, stupidest, most pathetic. He's going to die with this in mind. Whatever kills him he's going to blame this, even if he's 90 and hasn't seen L in years. He'll call it delayed activation of a slow-acting poison. He'll tell his grandchildren about it, and warn them all to throw themselves into their jobs, into justice, into empty passion, and not into other people, because other people suck the life out of you and eat it. 

"I'm sorry," L says again, "for what you are. What you have to be." Light thinks for a mortified moment that he's crying, but realizes it's just spit. "There's no other way to be, I'm sorry, I can't undo it, I can't stop it."

"Shut up," Light tells him, but softly, confusedly, playing the dazed victim that he reverts to without knowledge of what he is. What he, in L's words, _has to be_.

"Okay," L says, and takes off his pants.

He struggles with pulling them down his legs, has to shift half off of Light, then falls over, and Light tries to catch him instinctively, and feels stupid, but goes with it because it's in-character, it's what this version of himself would do and so he does it. Helps L strip himself until he's completely naked, arm jerking the IV bag off of its hook, and Light curses and rips the tubes out of his arm. It hurts but the burn low in his stomach hurts more and pressing himself on top of L's body, feeling him through his clothes, is the only way to relieve it.

"I don't mean to," L says. Light doesn't know what he's saying but he doesn't stop him this time, wants to hear what he'll tell the clueless version and won't tell the real, the true, the right version - the version that L _really_ loves, and wants, and is doing this to. "I didn't mean to," L continues, but stops, breath shiftily sharply, when Light wraps one heavy palm around his cock and squeezes.

It's been way too long. Everything's been way too separated. L's been too far away. L keeps touching him and everything keeps splintering.

"I missed you," L says, pulling his hair, and Light feels the sentiment reflected in himself, rolling around in his chest, a dull stone of emotion that he has to choke back. L pulls him against his lips, slurring his words between their mouths. "I didn't think I did, but I did."

He doesn't make any sense. Light can't even tell if L's talking about him as a whole or the him that he's pretending to be, doe-eyed and naive to the blood and glory, the things that make him what he is. He is a god and he is a prisoner and he is loved, suffocated by the hands on his body. He has drowned and been resuscitated again and again, and L is always the one standing over him as his eyes focus blearily, water-logged and gasping for breath.

He thinks errantly about the man who had beaten him bloody. The other L who is not an L so much as an debased imitation, a poor reprint on cheap canvas. The real thing is on him and under him, attaching like a parasite. His heart is going to sink out of his chest any moment now. L rubs his hips up and Light's body bows down and he's so hard, and angry, and full of desecrated grace. He humps L's hip, feels his bare cock pressing back against the seam of his pristine hospital pants, getting them dirty, _wet_ , so good and disgusting the way it's always been. Light feels himself defiling and being defiled, and he doesn't know which he loves more, or hates more, or which emotion to assign to what.

"I - " L starts, and Light arches on top of him and comes. 

L cuts off, gasping, laughing, obviously feeling it as Light presses down, hips canting dizzily, and there's a moment of shame, a pubescent instant of sexual performance-related fear, but it disappears as quickly as it had arisen, fading out with the heady afterglow. He can feel L pressing up and against him, clambering for pleasure, fingers digging into his shoulders; satisfying and petrifying, it's comfort and calamity at once. His body is taut under Light's, moving in stunted jerks, and it shouldn't be hot, shouldn't make Light slump down into him, pulling him up and as close as possible, but things are the way they are and they happen the way they happen and he is stuck with these writhing emotions, this degrading love.

He doesn't want it. 

He shoves himself up and away, the euphoria of orgasm fading back into the hum-drum heartbreak of reality and he doesn't want any of this on him. The sweat is cooling on his skin and he climbs up onto his hands and knees just as L's about to come, staunching the flow of pleasure the way one would blood from a wound. L's body is mid-arch but nothing much happens. He takes heavy, separated breaths and Light looks down at him and is disgusted. 

Disgust is the easiest emotion.

L opens his eyes, blinks up at him. Light stares back, swallowing dryly. The inside of his hospital pants is slick with semen and he feels dirty, used and discarded, even though he's the one who'd done both the using and the discarding. L's brow cinches with recognition and Light scrabbles off the bed, feeling sick and dizzy. His bandaged nose aches and he feels spent.

L sits up, breath still uneven, eyes glassy and the sides of his face slick with sweat. He looks feverish, defunct, like a device long left unused suddenly put back into action. It's only been a few days since they'd last seen each other, but several hundred battles seem to have come and gone in that time and here they are at the end of the war, kissing and fucking and casting each other aside, just like old times. 

Similarly like old times, L sees it, _him_. The real him. 

He's naked and he's hard, cock pink and erect. He says, "You remember everything." It's not a question.

"Of course," Light says, trying to maintain a veneer of control, but his hair's a mess and he's got medical tape all over him and he'd just come in his pants like a complete twelve-year-old and L is there and L can see everything.

"But Misa," he starts, frowning minutely at Light.

Oh. Oh, so that's where he'd gotten his bright idea. Not such a bad extrapolation really, but that's always the way of it: L is not really bad, just _wrong_.

"That - Misa's different," Light says. He doesn't know how to explain it concisely. He doesn't know how to explain it at all. "That just… happened. It's nothing to do with you and me." _Don't talk about her with your cock hard_ , he thinks, same as his mind sprints through a hundred different permutations of all the conversations L could have had with her.

"I'm not talking about you and me," L says, rolling himself over his heels and up onto his knees, "I'm talking about the Kira case." His voice is condemning, even though he still looks slightly shell-shocked, as if the twists and turns of reality haven't settled in yet.

"They're not separate," Light snaps, taking steps forward without meaning to. Closer, _closer_.

L scoffs, turning his head sideways, as if facing away from Light will keep him a figment, transitory and untouchable. Even after they'd just been touching all over, touched so much that L's cock is still hard in front of him, the news of Light's retained identity doing nothing to decrease his arousal. 

"Don't be naive," he says.  

But isn't that just what he'd wanted? Light clueless, innocent, knowing not his own power nor what he truly is. Maybe because that's the version of him that paws at L's feet, begging for scraps of affection, in comparison to the real and wakeful, the _Kira_ parts, which rip devotion from him like long and seething strips of skin.

Light smiles an ugly smile. "If I'm not mistaken, my naiveté just about made you come." He gestures lazily, as unconcernedly as he can, at L's cock, his nudity, all the things to be ashamed of. 

L doesn't seem ashamed. He tilts his head, swallows. "Just about, but not quite."

Light wanted to get away, didn't want to be dirty and dirtied, but here he is again. Little white room, little else to do, and utterly nowhere else to go. He likes how it looks, L's body pale and sticky with sweat, ugly mop of hair drooping with the heat coming off of him in slick waves. He needs it but he'll never ask for it, so Light snarls, "Want to fuck me?"

L blinks at him, as if surprised, but pleasantly. "Yes," he says, almost soft and almost quiet, but not quite. 

Light takes a step closer. "I want to kill you," he says. Another step.

"Yes," L repeats, slightly louder this time, and maybe he knows Light won't do it, could never do it. Just like how L's accusations and imprisonments of him inevitably end in them fucking at awkward angles in windowless rooms, Light's murderous schemes always devolve into violent sex and embarrassing fantasy. There are patterns and then there are things imprinted in one's bones. 

They kiss again and Light flattens L to the bed. His cock heavy against his stomach is sleazy, gross, all the wrong things.

"You betrayed me," Light says.

"Yes." L doesn't seem able to say anything else.

Light threads his fingers through his hair, pulling at his scalp, grabbing him close and kissing him in the rudest, most inconsiderate way possible. L coughs against his mouth. It's sort of foul but it's satisfying, warm, all the things he'd had to go without recently.

"You sold me up the river," he says, slipping his hands down to unbutton his own pants. The material is sticky, nauseating, uncomfortable against his skin, but then it's off and L's scrambling to help him.

"Yes," he's saying.

Light kisses him again. It's just a peck because everything else is so tiring. His cock is soft and it's not going to get harder. Underneath him, L bucks against the curve of his ass, grinding, hands wrapping him up at an uncomfortable angle, almost a hug.

The penetration is uncomfortable, and yet he feels loved. L's face pressed to his neck, L underneath him and struggling to breathe, L, L, L, and the rest of the world a fine white noise in the background. It would have been nice to be aroused for this part, but the distance is almost better. He can see everything from here, watch and catalogue and understand the act - sex, filthy and full of longing, but still just sex.

He lifts himself, thighs trembling with the exertion, up and then down again, feeling the press and letting his whole body roll with it. It burns, not quite smooth or stretched enough, but everything burns lately. His head is throbbing and his nose, ribs, jaw, and every other place the other L who is not L had hit, ache in alternating lows and highs.

"But you couldn't stay away, could you?" Light asks, silky, testing, drawing his hands up to grasp at L's shoulders, dig curved nail dents into his neck.

L gasps a guttural, "Yes," and Light's not even sure if he'd heard the question, or if he's just saying yes to everything, doing whatever it takes to serve his penance - or at least to get off. Ideally, those two things would be inextricable.

Light jerks himself down, taking L deep, and grinning at the quiet wince of pleasure that L's breaths out against him. "You ran away and then you ran back. Took me prisoner. You love me as your prisoner, don't you?" He fucks himself on L's cock and L quivers underneath him, body strung tight, eyes wide, watching, petrified with need.

"Ye - " he starts to says, but doesn't finish. 

Light is choking him. 

He doesn't know when he'd decided to, but he moves and he's touching his neck and it feels like a good idea, like salvation, skin smooth under his hand, throat easily manipulable. "Shut-up," Light tells him, hard and angry, so much emotion that he'd kept somewhere else, locked away in his cell with him, and it's coming out now. "Shut-up, shut-up, _shut-up_."

L's hips cant up into him, back arching, sweaty and pale and losing air, giving it to Light, giving Light everything.

Light feels him hot inside, and his head bows, muscles straining and exhausted but powered by a righteous, seething rage. "How could you," he says, tripping over the words, hair in his eyes, in L's eyes, and L in Light and Light on him, telling him, _telling him_ , "how could you do that _to me_? You left me, you stupid stupid stupid - "

L makes a muted, hoarse sound, and comes. It's hot, flooding, filling Light and making feel more like the owned than the owner - here in _his_ building, in his cell, with his wires and his bandages and his medicine, his body all around him and in him, the dominating force of this moment and all moments. L comes inside of him and Light, still not aroused but body flushed and thrumming with something else, says, "You stupid fucking asshole," and collapses on top of him. 

This is all fine, this is routine; love and hate and the boiling point between them where everything gets swirled up sickly and devastating. Light will take his hands off of L's neck and L will wipe his brow and touch his hair and they will lay, trying to pick up the scattered bits and pieces of their egos, not looking one another in the eye but consumed by solidarity. L will get them coffee and something to eat and they will talk about things - Misa and the man who isn't L, the who's and the how's and mostly the why's. They will insult each other and they will worship each other and it will be fine, or as fine as it's ever been. It will just be another day in the life.

Or it would be, except before any of that can happen, the power goes out and somebody, shrill and distant but far-reaching, screams.

 

\---

 

The King bows and the entire court bows with him. 

Rem ducks her head down, pulling Ryuk with her, who seems too engaged in the goings-on to be paying any mind to appropriate social behavior. She doesn't like him too well, but she'd rather not see him turned to a fine white dust before her eyes, if only for convenience's sake, and Upstairsmen, she's heard, can do that sort of thing at their leisure.

"Rise!" the Wings order, voice screeching but rhythmic, and emanating from outwards, the very highest depths of the sky, rather than the Wings themselves. They glide over top of the crowd of coyly lifting heads, parting the mass to land before where the King hangs atop his raised platform. "The backs of your necks are unfit to be looked upon by the realm above!"

The King blinks, unsurely, sliding his eyes sidelong to Armonia, who is hunched with his chin in his hand and gives nothing but a shrug in response.

"Quite," The King says, almost awkwardly.

In the old retellings of retellings of the gospel of the underworld, the relationship between the Upstairsmen and the lower beings - once referred to as the Downstairsmen, but that term has by now faded out of use - was once one of great violence and terrible destruction. A war waged between the light and the dark, gods and ungodly beings, pretenders to thrones and weapons forged in the cold crush of infinities, biblical glory and ruin and all of that theatrical nonsense.

The truth has always been more subdued: a polite contention, both sides as necessary to the governance of the universe as the other, but both resentful of one another. Sometimes the darkness holds the power, gliding its way through the upper ranks and grinning smugly with sharp teeth, but for the last few millennia, the light has been the reigning authority.

Which means, of course, that when the Upstairsmen pass through, they do it with the condescension and self-importance of royals among peasants, and the Shinigami have little choice but bow in subordination, until such time as the scales tip once more and they have their turn with regality. But that time is not now, and to younger breeds of death god, the Upstairsmen are a mighty and terrifying force, never to be questioned, always to be feared. 

Armonia Justin Beyondormason is not one of such a class. He is very old and unendingly impatient with nearly all beings, whether located upstairs or downstairs or in the human world, and so it is he and not the King - who is bound by the mannered dictates of his sovereignty- who finally asks, "To what, Temelechus, do we owe this fine and wondrous pleasure?"

He speaks very flatly, pointedly doesn't mean a word that he says, but his saying it is enough to spare him outright wrath.

The Wings fan out, whipping the stagnant air of the throne room into thin currents, as if turning to face Armonia. They say, "To the utter stupidity and thoughtlessness of one of your number! A great catastrophe has been caused on earth by this fool in his quest for amusement, and I have been sent in order to oversee the restoration of balance!"

"Hmm," Armonia says, uninvestedly.

Rem leans over and whispers as quietly as she can to Ryuk, "Is it talking about you?"

Ryuk shrugs, but he's grinning fanatically. "Don't know, but gee, that'd be cool, wouldn't it? I'd be famous!"

Rem blinks at him. "You'd be immolated from the inside out." 

"Well, yeah," he says, "but _famous_."

She can barely find it in herself to be surprised by his indifference to the threat of destruction. Ryuk is too young to understand the madness and desecration that the Upstairsmen, in all their supposed holiness, are capable of.

"An Abomination has been created and released to terrorize the earth below, and this cannot be tolerated!" Temelechus pronounces.

"Absolutely not," The King agrees, enthusiastically, cluelessly. The gathered Shinigami population nods along to varying degrees, or else just sits back observing with tittering excitement, livened up by the prospect of trouble to view and enjoy.  

Armonia admires his glittering nails once more, demurring, and so it is left to, if anyone, the common folk to ask the question that is likely on the minds of most. Slowly and stuntedly, Midora raises her hand, stretching it to its highest reach and then whipping it around for attention, until finally the Wings turn slightly, facing her as well as they can do without a body. 

"Yes?" Temelechus prompts.

Midora rolls into a sitting position, clearing her throat. "Well, I don't know about anybody else, but would one of you big-wigs like to clear up for me what exactly an Abomination _is_?" She scratches her claws idly against the skin of her head. "If it's not, you know, too much trouble."

The King's eyes go wide, as if that were very much the wrong thing to say, but Armonia chuckles quietly to himself and Rem appreciates Midora's forthrightness. Her fellows seems to share this opinion, because confusion is echoed, shared like a meal among them, and the growing howls and demands for answers - sourceless and untraceable, but most certainly present - force Temelechus to sigh heavily and explain.

"It is a disservice to your kind that you do not already know this, but such can only be blamed on poor rule," it says, swishing vaguely in the King's direction. "Alas, it is a lesson all must come to learn, so as not to repeat the mistakes that have been made." It turns, wingspan fanning out, its general front pointed toward the bulk of the crowd. "An Abomination is, like the Nephelim that comes from the intermixing of the creatures from above and the earth, created when a creature from below breeds with a mortal! One among your number has betrayed your kind, rejecting the ancient dictates of your world, and mated with a human being! And now the offspring of this unholy coupling is reeking havoc across the earth!" 

Midora says, "Oh," very quietly, eyes wide, and Rem _finally_ understands what has been happening down in Tokyo.

 

\--- 

**tbc.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it is a law of death note related things that nothing can ever be good (or even halfway good) for more than half a second so inevitably tragedy has to strike. also there's a plot that's got to happen i guess. don't ask me i just work her. thank you for reading! sorry if the prose was so/so this time around i had some trouble with this chapter but then i feel like that about every chapter it's an enduring thing. either way i hope you guys enjoyed it. as you might have noticed i've gotten awful at replying to reviews but i really do appreciate every single one so much you have no idea.
> 
> see you next time!


	29. king eats king

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think i should win something for officially reaching the longest break between chapters in the history of the fic nights. *takes a bow* thank you, thank you. please no photos. no, but really, i would apologize heartily for the delay except it's not like it's something i didn't do on purpose. getting settled in california and with a new job and in a new town and a cat and my darling dear bae was something i wanted to put my full attention on, and so writing got set to the side for a bit. i also took up some interest in an original story of mine that's now at 20k and nowhere close to finished, but i figured i better dive into nights again now that i'm well settled. so, viola! (and for those curious, things are going great over here!)
> 
> i'd do one of those dorky 'previously' things that i so love, but i'm exhausted and i want to get this posted asap, so if you don't remember what happened last time (understandably), either go back and re-read or shrug and go forward with joyous hopefulness at the mystery of what the hell is going on!
> 
> i love you all and your reviews mean so, so much to me. thank you for reading.

_"I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here?"_

\- Emily Bronte, _Wuthering Heights_

 

\---

 

They lie there, body melded against body, listening for further signs of catastrophe, but nothing comes but the jerk and hum of the auxiliary system turning itself on.

"Lovely," L says, and shrugs out from under Light, slipping, nude and constructed of dim hollows, to the floor where he scrambles around through the pile of mismatched clothes for his cell phone. He dials emphatically. Light sits up, watching him, feeling as if he'd dived into a pool of water and come out the other side in some sort of dark, floaty elsewhere.

"What's going on?" he asks, head rushing with suspicions that involve a dastardly twin L running amuck in a black catsuit raising havoc and mangling electrical boxes.

L holds up a finger, shushing him, and Light scoffs but follows the direction as a matter of convenience. 

"Watari?" L grumbles into the phone. "Have you still got video?" There's a short pause and L's unkempt brows draw downward, as he crouches to pull on his trousers, phone tucked between his jaw and shoulder. "Well, then where are you?… Mello? You couldn't have at least gotten Wedy or Aizawa or someone sensible and not immediately post-pubescent to watch the feeds?" He rolls his eyes, switching the phone to the other side and plucking up a shirt - which may very well be Light's, but he's not going to correct him - with the other hand. "No, I didn't expect a midnight power outage, either, although I probably should have."

He grits his teeth, struggling with his shirt sleeves and missing the neck-hole every time, and grudgingly, Light stands and moves to help him. L winces at the first touch, warm hands on his back, and he tenses as if against a blow, but after almost dropping the phone, he relents and lets Light dress him with a roll of his eyes.

Light smiles. His whole body hurts, but he smiles, pulling L's long arms through their sleeves

"Look, call Mello and make sure everything's functioning properly and that B's still in his cell. I'll head over there in person, just in case. Watari? Watari?" He pulls the phone away from his ear, staring at the screen, which blinks _Call dropped_ up at him. He redials, pulling out of Light's reach to move to the door. "Shit." He snaps the phone closed. "It's not going through. This - " He closes his eyes, scrubbing at his head like a mental patient. "I'll be right back. Stay put."

Light makes a sound of strained dissatisfaction, pulling his sticky hospital pants back on with a grimace. "Yeah, right, like I'm letting you leave me here to go get the tar beaten out of you by some discount copy-cat creep that you picked up on a Kabukicho street-corner?" He trips over the end of his pant leg surreptitiously as L punches in the code to unlock the door, righting himself quickly, then grabs his shirt up from the floor. 

L doesn't say anything, pulling open the door.

"Who is he, L?" Light snaps, slamming his hand up to block the door. There's no way L's leaving him alone in here again. This isn't a conjugal visit. This is _them_ , back together again. He's not letting him go so easily.

L closes his eyes, jaw locking, as if with restrained anger. Very slowly, he says, "Light, if you care about me at all, you'll stay here."

"Bullshit," Light bites out roughly. "I don't, then. I'm coming with you." He's a solid object, a force made of his own mind, and he's not letting L go anywhere without him. 

"Fine," L says, jerking to face him, eyes heated and afraid, unlike how Light has ever seen them, "if you care about yourself or your own life, just _listen to me_ for once." He swallows, wetting his throat with a rough sound, obviously panicking about something. About the man with black eyes and sharp teeth. "He wants to _kill you_ , and he typically gets what he wants."

Light keeps his arm locked on the door, an immovable barricade. "What he can get is _in line_. He's not the only one," he says, looking L up and down, "who wants me dead." 

L blinks at him, as if unimpressed, but Light can see that's cracking, he's - _agh_. Jabbing Light in his ribs, pressing into the still fresh wounds and sending him doubling over, clutching his abdomen. "Bastard!" Light shouts, as L slips out the door and slams it behind him. Falling against it, Light can hear him breathing heavily on the other side.

"You can get me back later," L says softly, and it barely makes it through the thick metal between them. As Light regains his breath and listens to the nearly soundless footsteps disappear into nothing down the hall, he supposes that was at least an assurance that they'll see each other again.

 

\---

 

Aiber's phone isn't working, service completely gone, which shouldn't happen unless power is down through-out the entirety of the district, which it doesn't look to be from Wedy's wide window. After trying several different numbers and turning the piece of shit on and off twice, he slams it down on the side-table and breathes deeply, swigging down the last of his bourbon and then leaning over to shake Wedy awake. 

He would let her sleep all night if he could, but circumstances align to fuck her over again and again, and as a fellow victim of such a curse, he knows the times and ways in which trouble cannot be avoided.

"Réveiller, mon petit," he murmurs against her hair, breath warming her cheek, and in the dim back-up lights he can see the pretty shadows of her eyelashes fluttering against her cheeks. 

"Fuck," she says, in a gravelly, post bar-fight voice, and pulls a pillow over her head.

Aiber grins, pulling it away from her. "I share the sentiment, beautiful, but the power's gone out and my phone's not working and there's a very real possibility that we're in the middle of an emergency situation and no one's yet bothered to notify us."

After a moment's pause, Wedy opens her eyes and stares blearily at the ceiling. "Fuck," she echoes, more coherently this time. Aiber nods and she rolls over, pulling her own phone from the bag beside her bed, pressing buttons and swearing in a throaty night voice. She shakes her head, shoving her phone in the pocket of a pair of black sweats that she'd kicked off when they'd tumbled one another into bed, and then pulls her gun from the side-drawer, cocking it once.

"Well then," she tells Aiber, holding out her free arm for a hand up, "let's go find us an emergency."

 

\---

 

Amane had been the one to scream, but from the video feed, it looks to have been nothing but shock at the power outage. She's curled up, knees to her chin, in her thin cellblock blankets, staring up at the ceiling with a look of frozen apprehension. Mello almost feels bad for her, killer or not. He used to separate people into piles, blacks and whites, but he's come to realize recently that people aren't laundry, and it's never that simple. Even Watson, rapist and betrayer that he'd turned out to be, had been kind to him and made him feel less afraid in London all by himself. Even if it had just been a lie and a manipulation, it had still counted for something. 

And B, who makes him feel consistently uncomfortable and treats other people's lives like toys with which to amuse his childish mind, has saved and protected him from certain trauma and death, and helped him more than he'd thought people could or would help one another.

So, it's not simple. Misa Amane is not simple, and even if she is an unrepentant murderer, she is afraid and Mello feels for her.

He dials Watari's number on the phone that had been left with him, but there is no cell service and he switches to the landline, powered by the back-up electrical grid. He's barely halfway through the number, when the lights flicker and then go dark, the camera feeds fizzing out in a buzz of silvery static. 

"Shit!" The phone goes dead in his hand. He's not sure what's happening, and not being able to get in contact with anyone is not going to help him figure it out. At least, at last review of the surveillance, everyone had been okay - all the prisoners in their cells, L slipping like a dirty white shadow out of Yagami's room and into the hallway, Watari moving silent and sturdy through the mid-floors where the medical staff were settling into their rooms, Aiber and Wedy roused alert by the outage, the officers waking each other up and whispering amongst themselves.

He opens the top-most drawer, feeling around, and coming up with a flashlight, which he flicks on and waves around until he finds the peripherally-noticed control switch encased in glass and labeled _Emergency Auxiliary Generator_. He assumes this qualifies as en emergency, takes a breath, and breaks the glass with the body of the flashlight.

When he pulls the switch the lights turn back on, though lowly in order to preserve energy, and he grins with momentary superiority, watching the cameras and monitors fizzle back into operation.

He's just flicking off the flashlight and moving back to the desk to call Watari when the power drops out again.

 

\---

 

L had gone by Misa's room first, walking back to the opposite end of the hall, punched in the code, and stuck his head in. "Alright?" he'd asked, and she'd squeaked in surprise, but then nodded hurriedly. He'd left her that way, moving quickly to the stairs and down to B's floor.

He's in the landing between floors when the power goes out for a second time, and he prays to the gods of death and gods of anything else that Mello manages to figure out the emergency switch or Watari at least gets there shortly - before their prisoners realize that their cell doors are unlocked. When the lights flicker back on for the second time he snorts to himself, relieved that Wammy's seems to have imbued Mello with a few critical thinking skills, or else that getting the hell out of that place and living in the real world is what had done the trick, and he heads down the second flight of stairs.

Then the power goes out again. 

They don't have anymore generators, and L's mounting suspicion of foul play turns into a certainty and he rushes the rest of the way onto B's otherwise deserted floor, to the maximum security medical room - which, in his initial designs, L had imagined Kira locked up in, if anyone - where he finds the door hanging open, the bed empty, and the medical equipment cast aside.

The message is blatant: _catch me if you can_.

L grits his teeth. He can. 

 

\---

 

After the lights go on and off for the third time, Light makes the decision to try his luck with the door.

It comes open easily, and he raises his eyebrows at the oversight, moving quickly out into the hall before another generator can get online and set the security system working again. It's pitch black on either side of him, the white wall straight ahead barely perceptible, and he squints, letting his eyes adjust, and moves in the direction of the darkness that looks slightly thinner than the alternative. Either way, he'll reach an end eventually.

L can't have gone far. Or, he can have, but Light's hoping that the alternating darkness and overhanging disaster had at least slowed him a little bit. It doesn't help that L had designed this building, surely knows every door and turn, and where all the _'watch you step'_ signs are located that Light can't help but miss in this darkness, knocking elbows with an offensive outshot of design that makes itself known, upon further investigation, to be a box containing a fire extinguisher.

He grits his teeth, shifting his weight the other way, the world becoming a little clearer with every step as the deep blacks fade to smudged greys, the whites of his hands slowly appearing before him as he moves along the hallway, which is either a tunnel in disguise, leading into the very depths of the earth, or else just appears that way for how slow he is going.

Then he sees her.

She's not who he'd been looking for, not even who he'd had in mind - left as he is to chase L after his every disappearance, pathetically, irredeemably - but once he sees her he realizes she was who he needed all along. Misa with her eyes, Misa his protector, knight in campy armor, whatever one wants to call it; the fact remains that she is a weapon, and one that he will gladly use to tear the bastard who had knocked him around like a punching bag limb from limb - B, the letter is _B_ \- and, as a bonus, get L in line.

There's just the pesky matter of getting her memories, and power, back to her.

"Misa," he says, hushed, the dark swallowing sound as well as it does light. He reaches a hand out, catching her around the arm, and she's warm and fizzing with something, a violence and a prettiness that she hadn't ever had before, like some kind of ornate, decaying statue.

His hand locks where it is, body stiffening up, as she turns to look at him. It's not Misa.

Running is the ideal, running is what boys who aren't Kira do, but Light stands there as this being, feral and gilded, turns to study him. "You're it," she says, in a voice like a church bell, and he wishes they were all there to see this, a true beast, a monster that they can pin their fears on while he ducks out of the spotlight.

He doesn't let go of her. "I'm a him, actually," he says, not letting the fear show in his voice. "You're the one who's really more of an _it_."

Her eyes are glazed over, trance-like, with a thin pink sheen. She smiles and she has too many rows of teeth, and he shouldn't be able to see so deep inside of her throat, shouldn't be able to see anything in this dim, but there's something about her that radiates a glow, ethereal and dirty, imperceptibly changing the way that the particles around her react to each other, lighting her up while leaving everything else dark.

Isn't that always the way of monsters?

She moves sharply, too quick, animalistic, a beast of prey going hunting, and her thin, clawed fingers are on his neck and her lipless mouth is pressed to his ear, mumbling nonsense in harsh and heady tones. He wonders, vaguely, how he can see her without having touched her notebook, but his whole intestinal tract is too busy crawling up into his throat for the thought to bother him particularly.

"Easy, easy," he murmurs, treating her as he would treat Ryuk, like a pet or a -

"Not easy. Never easy," she bites out, lyrically, like part of a song. "Do you know the one about the boy who went away with a bad man to a graveyard?" She switches tracts abruptly, as if taken with the tides of her thoughts, and Light grits his teeth. 

 _Women_.

"No," he says, calmly, placating, as her claws draw patterns on his neck. It doesn't hurt so much in the physical sense as it feels as if his blood is being slowly and soothingly drained. "I'm afraid I haven't heard it."

"It's a terrible story," she says. "It's my favorite. A little boy meets a man who he's never seen before, but the man is very nice to him, and says he's going to be his friend and buy him nice things, and since the boy is lonely and the boy is stupid, the boy goes away with him, to a beautiful spot the man knows. The spot is a graveyard, and in the graveyard there is a very tired girl who does not like to be woken, but she is woken, because there is screaming. Because the man strips the boy of his clothes, touches him in dirty places, and the boy tries to run and so the man _stabs him_. Has a knife just for the purpose. The man does this all the time, but never before on this grave. Never before within audible distance. The blood gets all in the ground and the girl drinks it because that's what she does now, and it makes her strong and it makes her homesick and so she crawls up out of her grave and she kills them both, unquestionably. She can't do anything but. Isn't it nice to be death? Don't you enjoy it?"

 

"I - " Light's not sure if she's asking him or if she even realizes he's there anymore. Her eyes have glazed over indelibly. "You're right," he says after a moment, swallowing thick and heavy, "that was a terrible story."

She slams him back against the wall and his whole body goes hot with pain, temples airy and throbbing, gutless stomach rolling with the sharpness, the utterness of the suffering. He's sick with how much he can't stop it. He really wishes unreasonably strong and violent people would stop seeking him out and doing harm to his person.

Maybe this is just what people do to gods. The masses with their pitchforks and torches, tearing down his temple.

"So, you understand now," the monster hisses, "why I have to go home."

"Yes," Light says, even though he has no fucking idea whatsoever where he's supposed to have gotten that idea. Story about a boy. Is that some kind of metaphor? Do Shinigami even deal in metaphors, or is everything literal? The blood is actual blood and the grave is an actual grave and the girl… 

It rocks him back and forth and suddenly he feels much sicker and more afraid. "You really are the one who's been killing the children," he says, but it's not even a question anymore.

Little boy goes away with the bad, bad man. How? How how how how is this happening, how is she doing it, why does he feel like his organs are spilling over into one another, congealing into a choking mass. Maybe because they are. Maybe everything is literal.

She acts like he hadn't said anything. "You have my ticket home. Give it back." 

"Okay, okay," he says, even though he doesn't know what he's giving. His notebook? Does she want his notebook? That's what she'd taken from Misa, isn't it? "Take whatever you want." 

"No, you have to _give it to me_."

He can feel it being taken, a sort of tug of war against an unknowable force, bright and strong and swallowing him, making his head fizz, his ears pop, the darkness around him burn and bubble up and he's _not letting go_ , he's not letting her have it. He's not sure if that matters. He feels as if he is going to die here, but if she takes from him what he has spent so long earning, leaving him with holes carved out where his purpose, his rage, his worth should be, then continuing to live would be little more than a painful farce. He is terrified of death but he is maybe even more terrified of reverting to nothing, an emptied carcass of a beautiful god.

But even empty can fill itself again, and even without his memories he has the base potential to _become_ once again. The cessation of his existence leaves no room for requital, and as this monster tears his self open from the inside and spills his knowledge and his guts and his trembling power all over the shadowed floor, he longs for nothing so much as he does to _punish_. The way that he is destined to. The way that he created himself to be able to. 

He's going to let go. Live to fight another day. L will help him. L will hate him, will condescend to him and laugh and burn him up, but he will help. Light's hands aren't around anything so he doesn't know what surrender specifically entails in word or in action, but he feels his rancor wilting, the strings holding his bones together loosening - he could fall, he's going to fall - he's -

He falls. Not in any bright metaphorical upheaval, though. He falls on the floor, cool linoleum, back knocking against the tiled wall, and the monster falls beside him, hair a mess and screeching silently in a cacophony that digs down into Light's head, pinching and devouring his nerves, making the world itself feel sick and heavy.

And then L.

But of course, it's not L. The letter is B, which doesn't seem to make particular sense, going from L to B or B to L and skipping the C through K that belongs in-between. But there he is, ragged and rampaging, body similar in the broad strokes to L's, but in the details all wrong. He's on the monster and he is biting it, clawing, everything animalistic raging out of him and onto her, and she roars back, making dizzy waves in the atmosphere around them that shake Light down and have him holding onto the wall for fear that if he lets go he will slide away into nowhere.

B doesn't seem to even notice. He pins the monster by her scaly arms, straddles her as he'd done to Light not a day ago, and it's a marvel to watch, like something on the safari channel, beast against beast, devouring each other in some primal ceremony of the natural - or unnatural - world. 

B seems to be winning, nasal breathes streaming out into high-pitched chuckles, a mad and underhanded sound that terrifies Light even as it shields him. Then the monster starts to laugh, too, rhythmically, beautifully, like the choirs of heaven beaming down upon them, a sinister and dream-like sound that overpowers B's, drowning out everything. It's still so dark but the whole hall is filling up with hazy lights. The monster doesn't seem to care that she's losing.

B stops laughing, very suddenly, and says something that Light does not understand, but that the monster seems to:

"Sadie?"

And everything turns upside down.

She climbs on top of B, knocking the axis of the earth out of balance so that everything sways in her favor, the light devouring the dark with glinting hungry teeth, and Light doesn't know that he shouldn't prefer this, in fact thinks that - given the substantially larger injury that one had given him over the other - he should side with the monster. Especially since she seems to be winning. But she wants to take away his Note, wants to take away _him_ , and he knows that the important bits will fade away to nothing if he lets her, if he lets _go_.

Best to surrender and live to fight another day, but even better to come out victorious in the first place, and so he finds his feet, though he knows not where, struggles to pull himself up on the wall, fingers scrabbling against the tiles, then knocking shoulders with the metal box whose acquaintance he had made previously.

He smiles, although it seems to tear his skin, and as the struggle behind him reels into a discordant chime of light and dark, unearthly forces devouring one another, he jabs his elbow into the glass protecting the fire extinguisher, rips it out and - going from memory; pull, aim, squeeze, something, something - _extinguishes._

The white chemical spray gets all over the monster's back, and though it doesn't seem to do any outright harm, it distracts her for long enough for B to jerk, head-butt her, and flip them over so that he is on top again. He grabs her, reeling back for a hit, and Light watches in satisfaction -

As she sinks through the floor, her ghost lights trailing after her.

"Fuck." B scratches at the floor, as if trying to crawl through after her, but it makes nothing but a low, sharp sound. "Fuck." They're left in the dark again. B falls forward, resting his forehead against the floor. "What the fuck." 

Light doesn't know what the fuck. He doesn't know what to do. He's gotten rid of one monster, only to be left with another. Pull, aim, squeeze, sweep, that's it. He's got it.

He pulls, he aims, he squeezes, he sweeps, and he lets the spray jet at B this time, pelting him endlessly with his only line of defense. One can't be too careful.

 

\---

 

Wedy has two guns and she gives one to him, which Aiber holds away from himself by the barrel the way one would a particularly slimy and poisonous insect, his sweaty fingers making streaks on the cool metal body.

"I would give this back to you," he says, to what might be a doorframe, "if I knew where you were." The dark is heavy and blanketing, suffocating them into small, singular cells of unknowability, even as they're directly next to each other. 

Wedy scoffs. He can feel her moving down the hall ahead of him, but her footsteps are silent, the cat-burglar in her awake and ready to pounce. "Stop squinting. Let your eyes adjust. Haven't you been through high-conflict night-training?"

Aiber follows, cautiously, but he can hear his slippers brushing against the ground clearly, as if the darkness is exacerbating the echo, letting the sound spread out as far as the eye can't see. "Yes," he mumbles. "That doesn't mean I _passed_."

"And L still kept you on?" she asks, voice low and slim, slipping back to him like a tiny messenger, but still conversational, as if she's barely winded by the situation.

Aiber shrugs even though she can't see him. "Must have been my good looks. Can you please take your gun back now?" 

"No," Wedy tells him flatly, stopping but not announcing this decision, so that Aiber bumps hardily into her back and has to steady himself against the corner that they're parked at. "Hand," she says, voice sharp, but not overly chiding, and he dispiritedly slides his fingers away from the edge of her breast where they had come to rest. "You'll need it," she continues, picking up the earlier thread of conversation like nothing has been said in the interim, "if we get separated. This place is huge and we're more likely to find Watari or L if we split up." 

"Actually," Aiber says, skipping to catch up with her as she darts gracefully around the corner, beginning to become a clearer shape even through the claustrophobic dim, "we're more likely to be brutally murdered. Haven't you watched any movie _ever_?" 

"As soon as I hear dramatic fight music, I'll start playing the heroine," Wedy tells him, motioning him forward with some sort of coded hand gesture that he supposes he's meant to interpret as _come on._ "But until then, let's both assume for consistency's sake that this is _real_ _life_." 

Aiber follows, shifting his grasp on the gun. "Well, if you want to take the fun out of it. Which way should I go, then? The surveillance room is up, but most everyone else is down, L included, I'm pretty sure. It's really a question of whether you want me to parley with Senior or Junior."

"You go up," Wedy tells him, as they approach the door to the stairwell. "Find Watari, figure out what the hell is happening, and get him to work some of that old inventive magic and _fix it_. I'll head down and try, if at all possible, to get some answers from the masses."

"Fine, fine," Aiber says, resignedly slipping the gun into the pocket of his dressing gown, feeling like a Hitchcockian leading man, except not quite sober enough and a little too prone to walking into walls. "Should we have a signal? You know, something to tip the other off if we run into trouble. With the power down, it's very possible that Yagami's on the loose, or worst case scenario, that very excitable and unkillable Birthday fellow, and I'm really not up to dying tragically tonight on top of everything else."

Wedy rolls her eyes. He can't see them, but he can tell, the way he can tell when she's hungry, or in a good mood, or on the rag. She exists so quietly and beautifully, the perfect soldier, but he knows her crying in her pajamas, knows her teenaged beauty queen photos and the way that her mother sucks her dry, softly and without really meaning to, and how Wedy lets it happen because she's too used to it to do anything else. He knows how her hands feel with diamond rings on them, and how much heavier they make her punch, and how to kiss her so that she stops telling him all the ways that he is wrong and starts telling him, with her hands and her breath and her cold clear eyes, that he is okay. 

She rolls her eyes and says, "If I hear a gunshot, I'll come running," just to tease him, just to spoil him, just to promise that, if not happily ever after, they'll _live_.

She is, endlessly, his savior, and he just hopes he doesn't run into anything he'll need saving from.

 

\---

 

He's a terrible copy. Light, stiff with terror and clutching his fire extinguisher like a shield, follows him anyway, up the stairs and out of the cell block, down halls he hadn't even known were there and then up more stairs, his stringy pale face a beacon to follow through the slippery dark.

When they finally stop for a breath, B counting off on his fingers and scribbling invisible markings with the pad of his finger on the wall, as if working out some detailed inner math equation. "How is easy," he mumbles to himself, voice dull and not overly remarkable, nothing like the slithering whisper he'd put on when he'd assaulted Light. "Why's not so hard, either. The question we need to ask is: when? Or rather, why did it take her so long? It's been years. She was always smart. It shouldn't have taken her so long." He turns back to his imaginary chalkboard, scribbling again.

He doesn't seem to particularly notice that Light is there, and annoying as that is, it leaves open a very convenient opportunity for Light to brandish his extinguisher and back him, as violently as he can manage, flat against the wall that he's so preoccupied with. 

"I don't mean to interrupt," Light says, though he's pretty sure he's snarling a grin of satisfaction that suggests he very much _does_ mean to, "your very important nonsense, but I think this is about the time that you're going to explain to me exactly who you are, where you came from, and what the _fuck_ is happening." He juts the nozzle against B's chest. He hopes it hurts.

B blinks, looks him up and down, as if he's only just noticed him. He doesn't seem particularly shocked or startled by Light's threats, rather he tips his head to the side, like L would do - stop it, stop it, stop stop you're a bad copy _stop_ \- and says, vaguely, as if making an objective observation, "I could take that, feed it to you, and watch it burn up your intestines."

The fear isn't heavy or drowning the way it had been with the monster, but rather lightning fast and skating past the edge of his skin, like sharp little goosebumps. It boils in his but he blinks it away.

He says, jaw grit and wrenching out a stolid resolve from the deepest stores within him, "Go ahead." He doesn't break eye contact. 

B shrugs, eyebrows popping, and for a panicking second he looks like he's actually going to take Light up on the offer, but then his eyes dart back to the blank space on the wall that he had been studying before, as if seeing some invisible notes to himself there that Light can't, and his body language droops from threatening to conversational.

"What did she say to you?" he asks. He pushes off the wall, knocking the fire extinguisher aside with an easy brush of his hand and backing Light up so they're standing face to face in the rough middle of the corner hallway they're in.

"What?" Light says, even though he knows, feels it tickling just beneath his flesh. "I don't know, something about - " he stops suddenly, lips sealing themselves. "I can't remember."

"Oh, pretty baby, that's very much bullshit," B says, and then reaches up and brushes Light's hair out of his eyes, gently, like it's nothing.

"Maybe," Light bites out, wincing at the pet name more-so than the touch, "if you tell me what I want to know, it'll come back to me."

B is taller than him, and he droops in angles over Light, like some sort of hulking grotesque statue on the eaves of a Victorian church, worn and vicious and curiously still. He says, "I could torture it out of you, don't you think?"

Light's not going to disagree with that. His pain tolerance is low and this isn't especially important information to hold onto, it's rather more the act of standing up to this brutish interloper, and letting him know that for all his madness and bloodthirst, he cannot corral a _god_ , nor bend him to his ugly will. 

So he says, "Not before L finds us," voice hard and as superior as he can get it, "don't you think?"

B droops a little. Then, quickly, all in one smooth move, he takes the extinguisher from Light's hands, casts it off to the side where it thunks loudly against the floor, and swings an arm around Light's shoulders, clutching him close. Light thinks briefly and vividly of dying here, with a bad copy and no answers to any questions, his paradise still under construction, all the grand and beautiful things inside of him swept away into the nothingness that waits, with hungry hungry teeth, on the other side of whatever border he'll be forced through. Without L, without Misa, his father, his sister, his mother, his childhood home and the city he grew up in, the world he's torn himself open in order to save. Everything devoured by this man.

He's ready to fight. He's ready to claw his way out of the grave that's being dug for him. Up through the dirt, just like the monster's story, just like the boy and his blood and the bad man, just -

B doesn't kill him. He doesn't even try. He leans back against the wall with Light at his side and says, "My name is Beyond Birthday, I was born in Tokyo in 1981 to parents unknown and raised in my early years by a pair of occultist foster parents who died under suspicious circumstances when I was five, and shortly thereafter taken to Winchester, England to live in an orphanage for gifted children, where, according to the official file, my 'already unbalanced temperament and criminally violent tendencies' were 'exacerbated by the competitive atmosphere and exposure to troubling stimuli,' resulting in my running away at sixteen, involving myself in a variety of nefarious pursuits, and landing myself a nifty jail sentence in the city of angels, which I recently broke out of in order to travel back to my hometown and run amuck with the locals." He gives Light a rough pat on the back. "Now, your turn."

"Wait," Light says, turning to look at him, "then where did you and L - "

"Ah, ah, ah," B interrupts, pressing one clammy finger to Light's lips, "it's tit-for-tat, this for that. I answered your first two questions, now it's time for you to answer two of mine. It's only fair. It's your game, champion, don't tell me you don't know how to play."

Light winces, head jerking back away from the touch. He's very touchy, this guy, physical in ways that L isn't even when they're fucking. He seems to fully inhabit his body in ways that Light hadn't realized until just now that most people don't.

He smells sweaty and cold. It's gross. Something about England flickers in the back of Light's mind and he half hopes that L finds them and half hopes he doesn't. 

"She just," he starts, resolving to play the game until such time as it becomes inconvenient, or he has ample opportunity to strangle this Beyond character with his own shirtsleeves, "she said a lot of weird things. I don't know. She wants something from me but I'm not sure what. I was a little distracted being mortally petrified to really take notes." 

B leans forward and… smacks him on the head. "Lie."

"Ow, _fuck_ ," Light grits, swatting him away, and it's more the insult added to injury that stings than the blow itself. "Are you 12? Get off of me."

"I'm ageless," B says, stroking his face, voice silky and mocking. 

"You're full of shit," Light tells him. 

"That, too." B drops down, very suddenly, out of Light's line of sight, hands rolling along his legs, stroking the material of his somewhat crusty hospital pants, seductive in an grimy way, and when he goes for the waistband Light feels both sick and horrified and amused at once. 

The audacity is actually kind of impressive. "What are you _doing_?" he asks, even as B pulls on the tie at his hips and the answer is fairly obvious. He wants to kick him off but he's a little bit frozen in stark awe.

"Giving you some incentive to play right," B tells him, fingernails sharp and grabby, brushing his skin like kind knives with softly destructive intentions, and it's another catastrophe but a funnier one, the sitcom hijinks version of a supernatural thriller, unlikely blowjobs and hair tickling his thighs and he half thinks about just letting him do it, with the vague hope that L will arrive and will see and will be madly jealous and take him away and stay with him and not keep _going away_ , breaking out of his cages and building them back around Light.

The other half, that isn't fatigued and lonely and tired, the part that is hungry to eat the sky and all the stars in it, won't let this little beast touch him without the assurance that he will be devoured back. Light's so long been pretending not to have teeth that they have retracted. He's got to bite, though.

He's going to bite.

He knees B in the head just as he's grinning at the come stains inside of the seams and he crashes backwards with a guttural laugh, and Light walks purposefully forward, waistband falling down around his thighs still and he lets it. He steps on B's chest, bare feet digging into his abdomen, and he can feel the squishy organs pulsing underneath him. 

"Alright," he says slowly, command flowing back, finally something he can _conquer_ , "I'll play. But fair warning, I'll win."

B looks maniacally pleased by this development. "I should have known," he seethes, grinningly, "you'd be a little jet engine with no wheels and all wings."

"That makes no sense," Light tells him, pulling his pants up finally and kneeling down to straddle B's chest, feeling that familiar wriggling power high low within him and letting it seep through all of his veins and infect every cell with its pale golden taste. 

"It does," B says, drawing his fingers teasingly along Light's tensed calves as they rest on either side of him, "you just have to feel it instead of think it." That doesn't make any sense either, but it doesn't warrant extensive rumination, because in the next moment B's moved back to tit-for-that, this for that, and he's gasping breathily, like he's sexually excited by it, "Tell me what she said, tell me what she said, tell me what she said, tell me - " 

"Christ, alright," Light huffs, cutting off the childish repetition with a press to B's throat. "She told me some horror story about a boy in a graveyard and his blood and drinking it and murder and it sounded like some pretentious high school goth phase crap, and I would have written it off as as much if she wasn't, you know, obviously a Shinigami." 

B bucks up against him. "Shinigami." He says the word like he's trying to chew it out of the air and swallow it inside of himself. "Tell me about it. I wanna know about death. I am death but I don't know enough about it. I haven't read the pamphlets and they wouldn't let me on the tour. I drank detergent when I was four years old and the pearly white gates told me that I would forever be too young and ugly to die, but I think they were just jealous because I was brighter and I had half a map of the cosmos in me."

It's this moment exactly, and miraculously not before, that Light realizes that Beyond Birthday is actually and legitimately certifiable and that it isn't just an act, or if it is, the act is built upon foundations of madness already there in the marrowy center of his bones.

"It's my turn," he says, shifting his weight lest B forget who the one on top is now, "my question." He has to frame this precisely, nothing so simple as, _'Where did you meet him?'_ or _'How do you know him?'_ He settles, after itchy moments of B watching him think, on, "What is your relationship to L?"

B grins wide, tipping his head back, as if he's seen something on the top of his head and is trying to get a better look, like a dog chasing its tail. Light presses down on his abdomen, jerking him flat and back into his line of sight. He makes a throaty huffing sound and bites his lip. 

"The same relationship that a comet has to the sun it orbits." He rocks his hips up, and he doesn't give Light time to ask for clarification, moving on quickly to a mirror question of, "What is _your_ relationship to L, princess?" 

Light grits his teeth. He's going to play to win. "Same principle," he says, "except I'm the sun and he's a black hole." He can feel B's pulse flickering under his flesh, in every muscle, live and breathing for all his ghostliness of manner.

B leans up. Light's afraid for a moment that he's going to kiss him, except then he stops, breathing warm and slow in Light's face, "Suns _become_ black holes, dumbass."

The kiss still would have been more insulting.

Light snaps, "And comets are tiny, meaningless bits of spacial matter that get swallowed up and destroyed by black holes."

"Are you saying," B titters, batting his eyelashes in a way that is in no way reminiscent of L, and instead reeks of burlesque and the feigned moans of whores, "that you want to swallow me, Kira?"

"I was more focused on the destruction part, actually," Light bites back.

He's going to say something else, something to tear the skin right off of this man's pale imitation of a body, but then the blood drains from the air, the pulsing hum of life overtaken by a cloying disease, sweet and endless, eternities of deep golden glowing pale nights, mornings where bodies burn up, and he feels sick and he feels like he could choke and quite suddenly, the juvenile snipes feel like a dead weight, bricks in his hands and he'll _drown_. He hurriedly scrambles off of B and up against the wall, trying to hide.

"She wants my Note," he grits, voice hissing sharply through the mounting white noise, that meshes into grey noise, which meshes into his head and makes dizzy light shows.

B sits up. He's kind of got bedhead and he doesn't seem ardently affected by the depleting oxygen in the room and the rot that's replacing it. "'Scuse me?" 

"She wants," Light whispers to him, then hurriedly shuts up, because talking about the Death Note is as good as admitting his identity as Kira. Does that even matter anymore? Who is he pretending for? The investigation team wouldn't find him guilty even if he literally stood on L's dead body clutching the Notebook and proclaiming victory - which is an oft-cherish fantasy that's now being spoiled by its relationship to this moment. "It - she - do you even know what a Death Note is?"

B waves a casual hand, rolling himself closer to Light like a child playing war with its fellows, sticks as guns and kitchen counters as barricades. "Diary you use to kill and get your jollies off, yeah. Merrie filled me in." 

"Who?" Light snaps, but it doesn't matter. He switches gears quickly. It's encroaching, death sneaking up and whispering sweet empty things in his ears, sounds like gasping patients on their deathbeds, and the cool quiet of a still grave at night. She did not have a still grave. They should run. He says, "We should run."

"I didn't know God was a runner," B remarks, creeping close along the wall to sidle up beside Light.

"Yeah, well, God has self-preservation instincts," Light snaps back, pulling him along by the arm, in a slow crawl against the grey tiling.

"Sounds very human of him to me."

They pick up a run after that, but not steps after they turn the corner, they stop, Light's feet slowing sharply even as B pulls ahead, not hesitating for a moment. Light lets go of him, lets him walk forward, lets him approach _it_.

The kid's got a dumb haircut, the sort that parents give first graders against their will to try to make them look respectable, as if a 6-year-old could be anything but a mix of the worst personality traits gleaned from its peers, loosely fastened together to form a weeping, laughing, hungry, shitting little brute. This child is doing none of those things, and will do none.

He's lying flat on the floor, arms spread out like he's playing dead, except the room has death carved into it, left like a signature. The monster's presence is fading but what she's left in her wake is swallowing and apparent and Light feels sick, doesn't know her name, couldn't use it, but itches for his Notebook just to release his crawling rage and the thick drowning pain in his throat. He's parched. The room is parched. The child is dead.

B's tilting his head to the side, like L except it doesn't matter, L or no L, B or any other letter, everything is heavy and small and suffocating and all the world's ugly pieces are lining themselves up, interlocking and spelling out in festering symbols the war and which side will win. Justice will not prevail. There is not justice here. Death is not something that can be organized in neat rows and lines on a page. Death is splatter-paint, abstract and ugly. The pattern is that there is no pattern and the truth is that there is no truth.

B chuckles and Light will kill him with his bare hands.

"You're a monster, too," he chokes out, wanting to turn away, wanting to cover up his eyes, plug his nostrils, drown out the rising horror soundtrack that's playing in the background.

"Yeah," B agrees, "but this kid isn't dead."

Light's thoughts snap back into focus, like the key in the lock, the numbers lining up, stars falling back into their constellations again, the planets back in alignment. Here is justice. It's singing hymnals inside of him. Such a sharp switch, but he is such a sharp man and his emotions play haywire games inside of him, shaping the world in shades of dark or light, alternatingly. 

The light has triumphed. Justice is a thing that breathes.

"He's not dead," he sighs, letting it whistle out on a breath. This means everything is salvageable. 

"Uh-huh." B nods, straightening up and away from the corpse that isn't a corpse, for as blue and cold and _gone_ as it looks. "He's not even real."

Justice dims again, and utter confusion drowns it out.

 

\---

 

Syd goes to Edmund's precinct only to find him off for the day, struggles with his unpaid cell phone bill to make a call to his apartment, and freezes halfway through haranguing a despondent customer service representative when he spots the smudged hand-drawn likeness tacked up amid the sea of lost dog flyers and amber alert notices. He flips his phone closed.

Mello looks cleaner and more well kept in the drawing than he had last time Syd had seen him, with a proper haircut and everything, but it's the same boy, same doubtful eyes and thinning cheeks, the barest remaining hints of baby fat showing his youth. He understands serendipity, here and now, even though it's gritty and tired and far too caffeinated, nothing like the daisy fields and sunshine in the images that Sadie had painted in his head, of a beautiful world that made beautiful sense. 

"Everything will turn out," she used to say, in her tiny dresses, hair lumped messily on top of her head, balancing the shop's books in her reading glasses at 5 AM, while Syd would pace the length of their apartment panicking about money. "Serendipity, Sydney. These things have a way of ending up okay." 

He'd believed her. He'd kissed her while the sun came up. 

She'd died a few months later and he'd cradled her head in his lap and sobbed, wringing out the belief and the comfort and the kindness that had worked its way into him through her, like tears wrung from a handkerchief.

He draws his finger along the scrawl of contact information at the bottom. _Have you seen this boy?_ There's no phone number, just an email address, and Syd goes to the public library and sends a very confused and surely off-putting email to the owner of the drawing, hoping that strange information will still count as valuable information.

_Hello, my name is Sydney Grauss and I have seen the boy in your picture. Name of Mello, as far as I know, or maybe Mihael. He stayed with me briefly and he and his companion, who I know to be extremely dangerous, extorted help from me in their travels. I'd be happy to tell you where they went, but only on the condition that you meet me in person and discuss the matter with me fully. There's information that I can't relate unless I know you can be trusted._

After some deliberation he adds, _Sorry_ , at the end of it, and then sends if off, hoping for a speedy response.

Within ten minutes her gets a reply that is only an address, which with Google and a lot of squinting at maps he pins down to an abandoned hospital that's been the scene of two gang-related shootings and is commonly used by teenaged squatters and down and out businessmen making the commute to work everyday from a dirty mattress on a dirty floor in a room shared by a dozen other luckless sorts of their ilk.

It takes him a dull metro ride and a lot of wrong turns and sidelong glances at dangerous looking men with tired eyes sitting outside of shopfronts smoking before he finds it, big and bulky and corroding in an eerie tucked away corner of the city. The white brick front is spotted and grey, and from the date of establishment carved into a stone placard on the broken gate, it had been a World War II hospital. No one stops him from walking in and he can hear a radio blaring top-40 hits from the caved in doorway.

Room number 117 is what the address specifies and that's where he goes, steps slow to avoid being lost in the claustrophobic halls. It's so pale and dim, like a mausoleum, but at least it's long lost its hospital smell, the thick cloying scents of spliff, liquor, and grime long having overtaken it. 

When he gets to the right door, he knocks, first softly and then with increasing vigor. "It's Syd," he says. "Sydney. Grauss."

He gets no response and the door doesn't open, but the situation he's in now and the reasons why he's here are not something easily set aside, so after bracing for the worst - man with a gun, man with two guns, Beyond Birthday returned as his tormentor and housemate once again - he turns the knob and goes in.

He'd prepared himself for a vast and varied assortment of somebodies in this room, but what he finds is _nobody_. There's just a computer, hooked up to an assorted mass of complex machines and fans, like a scrapheap version of an electronics store. The computer is on, and text is blinking on the screen. Otherwise, the room contains a slept-in looking mattress, a selection of dirty mugs, and what looks like a stack of car magazines. 

 _Are you really alone?_ the text says. 

Syd looks around, spying the camera attached to one of the many devices with its blurry green light flashing beside the lens. 

More text appears on the screen, as if from some sort of instant messaging program. _You can speak_. 

"Yeah," Syd says loudly and slowly, "just me." 

_Are you unarmed?_

Syd snorts at the screen, giving the computer a disbelieving look. "What are we, in a Bond film? Of course I'm unarmed, Christ."

_Turn out your pockets._

Syd rolls his eyes but does as he's told. He's not quite afraid, although he probably should be, because if this really is the sort of MI6 shit that it looks like it's shaping up to be, there's no doubt they'll have the capabilities to get a message to the Japanese government, or at least to track down Beyond Birthday and have him give Syd a ring. There's a pack of gum and 60 pence in his jacket pockets and nothing but lint in his trousers.

"Satisfied?" he grunts at the camera, like its glassy face is truly that of the person or persons giving out these inane orders.

 _Almost. You're obviously not a threat._ Syd frowns as the words appear on the monitor as they're tapped out at an unreasonably quick typing speed. _My only other question is how you knew Mello's real name?_  

Syd frowns. This doesn't read like the speech pattern of a secret agent, too personal and informal. "Mihael?" he asks the camera. 

 _Yes_. 

"That's what B called him. Uh, Beyond Birthday, his companion. That's actually what I came here to talk about. I need to get in contact with him, only he's somewhere in Japan with your Mihael and that cop bird, and…. " He slows to a stop as closet door, until now shrouded in the corner's shadows and out of notice, opens up and a boy who looks roughly Mihael's age, if that, rolls out on half of a broken gurney with a laptop sitting on his crossed legs and a cigarette hanging out of his chapped mouth. 

"Wait, Beyond Birthday, like, the serial killer?" he snaps at Syd, not bothering with introductions. He's freckled and his eyebrows naturally arch in such a way that make him, no matter the contortions of his facial expressions as he speaks, look continually surprised.

"Uh," Syd says, not quite sure what he's stepped into, but fairly certain it's nothing to do with MI6, "yeah, probably."

 

\---

 

Aiber's dressing gown is hanging open and L can see his ball sac, as well as the glint of the gun that's pointed straight at him. "Identify yourself," he yaps into the dark hall, and L slips fully out from behind his corner.

"You've gone very Robocop all of a sudden, haven't you? Point that somewhere else." He ruffles his hair, hoping that the sweat-soaked, _I've just fucked a condemned criminal_ look isn't overly obvious in the dim, but even if it is, he's confident that Aiber will set aside his unrighteous tirades for a time when every dangerous personage in the building isn't on the loose.

"Jesus, L," he breathes, shoving his gun back into his overly embellished paisley pocket and sagging against the closest wall. "You should really look into getting an immortal nemesis who doesn't look _exactly like you_. You nearly gave me a heart attack, which, of all ways to go, would be my very least preferred."

L leans next to him, even though they don't really have time to waste, because he hasn't been alone with Aiber since he'd gotten back and he thinks that he might be the only person who really and truly missed him, and that's owed some measure of deference. Or, no, no, he's not owed anything because L does not owe, L makes himself a thing which common sentimental bonds have no hold on, but he feels it, the pull. He leans next to Aiber and it's hard to see his face but he's just as wide and strong and sad and longing as he's always been.

"He's not my nemesis," he mumbles. "Or immortal," he adds quickly, "at least not definitively." He holds out his hand. "Gun?"

"Please," Aiber says, plucking up the thing and handing it off like a very unflattering accessory that's being necessarily discarded from the ensemble. "And at this point, I'm more willing to believe the unbelievable than anything else. Judging from patterns." 

L blinks at him. "I missed you," he says, and he'd like to think he hadn't meant to, but he had. Sentiment, oh, sentiment. Once there's one hole in the hull the whole thing sinks quickly.

"Now that," Aiber says, after a pause where he seems to hold himself back from something, "I can't quite manage to believe."

"I had a lot of time to think while I was gone." 

Aiber snorts but it sounds forced. "Yes, I'm sure thinking was exactly what you and Yagami were doing."

L rolls his eyes. "Yes, fucking," he says, pushing off the wall and gesturing Aiber to follow, which he does wordlessly, "but not as much as you might think. Imprisonment is hardly as glamorous as one might assume. Do you know how long I went once without brushing my teeth?" 

"I'm pretty sure I don't want to."

At the corner they stop and L holds up a hand, ducking his head around to make sure the next hall is clear. "Where's Wedy, anyway? I thought the two of you went off to get reacquainted after the panic died down."

"We split up," Aiber says, following him, "cover more ground, classic horror movie set-up, I know." He moves so he's slightly ahead of L, facing him as well as one can in the near pitch-dark. "You're changing the subject."

"There's a lot of subjects to get through. I'm rotating to save time." L feels it rising in him and shuffling the deck is the only way to avoid dropping everything and having to play a long, dirty game of 52 pick-up. He doesn't have time for this right now. When everyone is back in their cells and the power is on, his ducks in a row and his rows in nice even columns, then they can fully talk about this. Then he can press his forehead to Aiber's and forget for a bit about the ugly things that he needs more than the pretty ones. 

"I do love you," Aiber says, outright. Maybe it's easier when he can't really see L's face.

L says, "I know," because he doesn't know how to say anything else, and Aiber laughs and shakes his head and he looks heartbroken in that calm, drunken way he has. 

"You're such a fucker," he tells L.

"I know."

They move quietly further down the hall, a mute recognition hanging full between them, like luggage mutually carried. "It's not simple," L says, after a bit. Aiber is not an honest man but he is a good man, and L has never been loved by one of those before him. He's not the same as Light or B, but he's got his own category, set aside. It's not fair to him and it's not fair to anybody. "We don't have time to hash it out right now. Right now there are three killers on the loose in this building, not including the ones that are on my payroll. I need you to go and find Wedy again and then go to the main room of operations and wait for myself or Watari to show up and brief you. In fact, get Mello and the whole of the team, if you can. It's safer if everyone's in one place."

"And the doctors?" Aiber asks, swallowing the orders like familiar medicine.

"Leave them. Maybe put a guard on their floor, but I want them as little involved as possible. The fewer people who know the nature of the situation, the better." 

Aiber nods. "Sir, yes, sir." He's teasing but L knows he'll take the orders seriously. 

"And Aiber? We'll talk later. When this mess is sorted out. Over tea, or something." L feels awkwardly like he's setting up a date and Aiber smirks at him like he knows it. 

"I'd rather drinks," he says. 

L shrugs. "I know you would. Fine, I'll see you then. Please don't die." 

He moves towards the stairwell that will take him up to the equipment room where he can maybe pick up a flashlight or two, and he can feel Aiber's eyes on his back and he hopes they're not forgiving. But, of course, they are. 

"Back at you," he calls after L, and L catches the words and keeps them in his pocket, then opens the door and closes it behind him. Hello to the wasteland.

 

\---

 

B's sitting cross-legged next to the body, like he's a child and it's a stray pet that he's claimed as his own and is trying to coax into action. He grips the boy's face, peels open his eyelids to watch his dead eyes goggle, and says, "She had this computer program - it was shit, on Windows 98 or something - but she'd make digital renderings of cell decomposition and growth and then play them on a loop in the background while Syd made dinner. She set one series to a Kinks album. It was an art form to her, I think, even if she pretended it was a joke. She was all smiles in front of him but I had a few long, dark, drunken conversations with her where I saw the parts that wanted to destroy the world and regrow it. She was an amazon somebody raised in captivity and Syd was supposed to be her freedom, but even that was just a bigger cage."

He looks up at Light. He's got this enthralling way of speaking that makes Light grit his teeth and stoutly refuse to become enthralled.

"Death was her real freedom and that's why I followed her home. I wanted to kill her for so long, just let her out of her stifling body, but I had to wait for the numbers to match up, and even then I didn't lift a finger. She just tripped." He bops the dead boy who is not a dead boy on his nose. "The universe is so funny." 

Light has so many questions he could ask, and he wants to, but instead he _tells_. "You're a psychopath." 

B tips his head to the other side. "So are you." 

Are they in first grade? _I am rubber, you are glue, etc., etc._ There's so many more important things going on but Light can't help himself. "Psychopathy," he starts, "is defined as not only an inherent lack of empathy, but - " 

B rolls his eyes. "Don't quote your textbook at me. What the word really means, when applied, is: you're not like us and we don't know what to do, so here is a box, crawl into it. Mental disorders are just labels they stick on things that are scary to try to make it seem like they understand and can quantify them. You might really be a god and I might really be a prophet, but they'll stick us in the nuthouse either way because there's no room for holiness and horror in this world anymore. You have to keep it in the shadows if you want it to keep."

Light blinks. He doesn't like this and he doesn't want it. He wants L, who argues with him on terms he understands, level ground. B sounds like he's talking out of the sky, and not in the good way. He knocks it aside, because there's too much going on.

He points at the child. "Explain this. Explain _her_. I don't have time for more riddles and neither do you."

B stands up, swiftly, all in one move. "I was getting there." He latches a hand onto Light's arm and pulls him down, so that they're both crouched on opposite sides of the dead body, and Light lets himself be pulled because there doesn't seem to be anywhere else to go. "Smell it," B orders.

Light wants to feel sick but he doesn't and he's not sure why. This is sickening. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Okay, don't smell it, I'll smell it for you." He leans forward, takes a big whiff, and then breathes it at Light. He can feel the hot air on his face but there isn't a smell. He's not sure what he's meant to be looking for. "Death has a scent. I don't mean rotting corpses, I mean _death_. Deep and dark and fleshy. This smells like computers."

Light frowns. "Computers don't smell like anything." 

B winks at him. "Now you're catching on. This is too perfect, too clean and crisp. It's like a horror movie set. Death is never like this, and I'd know pretty well because I've been on both sides of it. There's a different scent here, like a well. Something leading us down, down, down, but even that's superficial." He rolls back on his heels and squats like L and Light thinks it makes him look unbearably stupid. "She's pulling off a drama here, what I don't understand is why." 

Light stands up. Now that the corpse isn't a corpse, the place where his empathy had been just feels hollow, like a sinkhole. "Yeah, neither do I. Remarkable, the things we have in common."

B rolls his eyes and stands with him. "Her name is Sadie Markovitch. She was a girl I knew and a girl who died."

"You killed her." Light isn't asking a question.

B shrugs. "No, but I watched her die."

"You _let_ her die." 

"Like a policeman _lets_ a speeding comet crash to earth and destroy it? Death is inevitable. Now do you wanna play backs-and-forthies all day, Kira?" B's voice is nasal and flared slightly at the edges. "Maybe wait for her to actually off somebody in the building? I always thought L's corpse would be kind of a marvel to behold."

Light scoffs. His fingers tingle at the edges. B is leading him around the corner and he's letting himself be led because standing stolidly in place wouldn't really get him anywhere. "You're disgusting," he says, more out of propriety than anything else, and a moment later B abruptly turns them arounds and drags Light back around the corner.

There's nothing there. 

The hall is empty, creepy in a cheap '60s thriller sort of way, but there are no little boys with pale little faces. Light feels something twitch in his gut; the absence of a body is almost more terrifying than the body itself.

"Yahtzee!" B cackles. 

His voice echoes and maybe she can hear him and maybe she's coming. Maybe they should turn tail and run, but Light can't spare a thought to order his feet to move. The strings are tying themselves together, forming loose patterns that weave themselves tighter with every passing moment. The grand, glorious, choral moment where the heavens open up, light shines down upon the mere mortals - mere monsters - and everything is kind and everything makes sense. The pen is placed in his hand and the paper under his fingers and his only task is to write the words.

"The children," Light says, and then doesn't say anything else.

B turns to him with an eyebrow cocked. "Yes?" he prompts. "Aren't you supposed to be the brightest student in the country, genius IQ and all that? I'm sure you can string together a more complex sentence if you really put your mind to it."

"Shut-up," Light snaps. "I'm thinking."

"And woe is the cruel soul who interrupts such a sacred activity," B titters, leaning in close so that Light can feel his body heat. It's distracting and sort of gross on top of that. He closes his eyes and lets his understanding settle. 

He says, "That's how she's been raping them without genitals and killing them without a weapon." He grits his teeth. "It doesn't make any sense and I hate it, but if she can transform reality to make it _look_ like she's killed them, then - " 

B's shaking his head already. "That's not how it works, babydoll. It's not a parlor trick. When you play with things on the molecular level, it's not surface or disguise, it's an actual _transmutation_. Something becoming something else. You're talking about the Tokyo child killer case, right? Yes, I watch the news, and no, the pretty fairytale you're spinning in your head is not how it's going to turn out. The children are still dead. Just because the path from point A to point B - " he wiggles his eyebrows when he says his own name, " - is not one you're familiar with, doesn't mean it didn't happen."

Light nods, letting the shining things drop out of his hands before he can get too tight a grip on them. It makes sense, almost, in a quaint way that he hadn't expected it to. "It's like the Death Note," he says, momentarily letting all thoughts of antagonism and competition go to make room for pure intellect. "It kills people through no traceable mode and doesn't fall in line with the commonly accepted rules of reality, which makes those rules void." He starts pacing, overtaken by his sudden interest in an application of scientific principles to what he'd always considered just as unexplainable as any holy relic. "If it's possible to contort reality through cell manipulation - or even some other way that we haven't even considered yet - then that's probably exactly what the Note does. It's a tool for it, easy for anyone to figure out and use, like a mass-produced household item for every common Shinigami that can't manage it on their own. But then - "

"She's not a Shinigami, though," B interrupts. His brow is scrunched down a bit but, fortunately, he seems to be following. "She was a person, a plain Jane human being just like you. She's only what she is now because of me and my blood."

Light turns to face him. These words are a wrench in the smooth-running works, getting his splendid, clean theories all dirty. "What do you mean?" he snaps. "What's so special about you?"

B is grinning at something over his shoulder and Light thinks a cataclysmic assortment of things that all pile up on top of one another, obscuring specifics and morphing into a conglomeration of: _she's right behind you you're going to die maybe it's L maybe it's heaven's gate maybe he's just grinning because he's crazy maybe you're crazy maybe monsters maybe gods_.

He's about to turn but then B says, "I'm so glad you asked," and there's a sound like a firework and a sluicing through the air beside him and B is falling back, clutching his shoulder and laughing as blood soaks bright red through his shirt. It looks black on his hands. His jaw's locked with what might be pain but mostly he looks cheerful. "Jesus, Wedy," he grits, grin forming, but then it drops off. 

It's not Wedy. L's voice, thin and casual, says, "No, I'm actually neither of those people," and he slumps out of the dark and past Light's shoulder, the fabric of his shirt brushing the fabric of Light's. How romantic.

He looks about the same as he had, if slightly gaunter, as if the shadows in the building have worn down into him, making hollows where there were none before. He dangles his gun like it's an accessory, the sour smell of powder and smoke following him like cologne.

Light says, "You look like shit."

L jerks his gaze up to him, as if involuntarily, and his hard edges are trying to be hard but he can see where they've fallen soft. He looks relieved. "You, too," he says, and Light finds it comforting even though their whole relationship is a crapshoot and he shouldn't. 

"What?" B grumbles from where he's slumped, blood smearing the white wall. "No flirtation disguised as insult for me? Don't I look like shit, too?"

"No," L says, and his voice is so empty that there's gotta be something in there. The limousines only have tinted windows because the people inside want to hide. "I have something else for you." He points his gun at B and B points his teeth back at him.

"It won't kill me," he hisses, but he's starting to panic and Light would feel bad for him if he wasn't busy feeling infinitely superior and quite a bit relieved.

"Good," L says, and pulls the trigger.

 

\---

 

Temelechus counts out blessings. The underrealm has left him sticky with its shadows and he bathes in the dew of the Great Above and washes himself clean, the names dripping from him like teardrops. He doesn't speak but he is heard by all, but for the humans, who, rather than quivering in awe and terror as they ought, rhapsodize and revel, singing their short songs and dancing their short dances before being snuffed out like candles in a dark room. 

The universe is a dark room but the Above is outside of it, the light shining in the windows, every so often blessing terrified mortal surfaces with its splendor.

This will be one of those times. Temelechus counts out the Watchers and settles on one who is both stout of build and simple of mind to go and collect their fierce little friend on Earth. "Bring me the Abomination," he orders. "If there is more than one, bring more than one. Lift its deathly stain from the human realm so that we may no longer suffer the absence of harmony in our glorious kingdom."

The Watcher floats before him, eyeless but all-seeing, and groans its compliance.

Temelechus waits a few moments, praying to the pale and misting air around him for patience, but after a further few moments, snaps, " _Now_ , please."

 

\---

**tbc.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what do you mean this fic has an actual plot now? no. i stoutly refuse to believe that. anyway, i hope the update was enjoyable and can say with certainty that the next won't take half so long. thank you for your patience and for sticking with me on this wild and heartily uncomfortable ride.


	30. three's company

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, it's been just about 14 months since i've updated. how's everyone? i don't have a lot of explanations or excuses, because if i started in on them i'd never get done. this chapter has been written for a year. the writing style is outdated as far a my personal growth as a writer, but consistent with that of nights as a whole. following chapters, should they in fact, um, happen, will probably be in a noticeably different (hopefully developed?) style. sorry it took so long. my life was excessively full of events in the last year, my interest in death note dwindled, but i never stopped writing original work, so i'm not out of practice, just out of the loop.
> 
> i spent the last couple of weeks re-reading nights in its entirety. i cringed a lot. i was proud of some parts. sorry it took me so long to get here. i don't especially expect anyone to read this, or remember this fic, or care, but if you do?? thank you, i apologize, i hope you'll like it.
> 
> if you don't remember what happened last time??? man, just go with it. concrit and hatemail and all that is vastly appreciated. don't put any of your faith in me. but b? yeah, you can put your faith in him.
> 
> warnings for: gunshot wounds, violence, sexualized violence, hyper-sexualization of everything, bad writing, inane plot happenings, shinigami nonsense.

“I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster, she thought, and the monster feels my tiny little movements inside.”

\- Shirley Jackson, _The Haunting of Hill House_

 

\---

 

Light is dirty and small and very lovely in the dark. L tries not to miss him but it's hard when they're standing face to face. B's collapsed on the floor and L doesn't know how long it will take him to reboot himself into proper gallivanting fashion, only that his trigger finger jitters with the eventuality of knocking the whole round into him if he has to. They should be hurrying but Light leans back against the wall and closes his eyes and L doesn't pick him up.

"I thought I was the killer and you were the catcher," he says. His eyes are closed but his lips quirk at the corners. "That wasn't a sex joke." He flattens his expression and shakes his head. "You've ruined me. You're such a hypocrite." Moments pass and B still doesn't get up. "Say something, dammit."

L doesn't know what to say. There are a thousand necessary explanations and twice as many unnecessary declarations and by all rights he should be locking Light to the nearest immovable fixture and leaving him to rot, the way you do with the condemned, divine or not.

He takes a couple of steps forward. "He's not dead," he says. And then, "You were always ruined. I think it's something that was innate in you." And he wants to square off, grim grins and glancing blows, nothing too solid but teasingly destructive, the way they grew into each other. His pegs only fit in Light's ugly holes, and vice versa, and so the pattern's shot when he drops his body slowly forward and rests his forehead on Light's taut shoulder. A nice place to rest. A nice place to die, if they had time for it. 

"What are you doing?" Light's body is stiff under his, unsure of what to do with something gentle and without ulterior motives.

Maybe there are ulterior motives, but if he has them L can't keep track. Dear things are very hard to have and even harder to keep in line, and maybe he'll put Light in an electric chair and maybe they deserve to have a matching set, king and king, a grandiose end to a sad bad _mad_ story, but right now what they have is their bones, their arms, their uncomfortable clothes and a dark hall and a dead body.

"Are you hugging me?" 

"Be quiet," L tells him, dipping his head into the crevice under Light's jaw. He likes it there. It's warm and afraid and those things are what keep every hot-blooded animal alive. "Enjoy the moment."

Light snorts. "There's dried semen in my pants and a sideshow freak who looks remarkably like you dead on the ground beside us. There's not much to enjoy."

"No, there isn't," L agrees, and Light sighs and wraps his hands around his back and pulls at him like the longing, greedy little boy he is and has always been. L is the same boy, only older and deader around the eyes, but he feels it reflected back in him, like smoke signals exchanged in the grey crush of dawn. 

Light grabs him and L grabs him back and they wade for a moment like slow-dancing freshman at prom. "I'm still angry at you," Light breathes into his hair. "I'm still going to make you pay for what you did to me."

"Back at you." L feels smothered and he doesn't mind it. 

There's a bit of a cloying hiss and wince and laugh and L knows who's awake and who's hungry. From the floor, B grits, "Me, three," and L draws his knuckles softly, whisperingly cruel and he knows it but it's what he is and has to be, against Light's wrists and then pulls back.

Light doesn't seem to object, just slides side-longly out of B's immediate reach. The nice thing about Light, along with his thighs and his smile and his horrific idealism, is that he's all self-preservation. Unlike B or even Aiber, he wouldn't get in-between L and a bullet, and would in fact probably take photographs to commemorate the occasion. He's out for himself and that makes him very easy to keep track of in some ways, if slippery in others. He and L would both sacrifice the other for a stick of gum, and in this unapologetic betrayal there is a sort of communion, a pre-agreed upon forgiveness with every destruction. They signed a waver when wrapped in white sheets and then they strangled one another with it. There's so much more safety in the surety of unreliability than there is in seething declarations of loyalty.

L kneels down in front of B and points his gun, casually, wrist loose, like it might as well be a super-soaker and they're running ragged through quiet neighborhoods. "I'll shoot again if I have to."

B grins wide and lazy, like he's just woken up from a long nap. "Whatever gets your engines revving, kitty-cat." 

L has an urge to laugh despite himself, but Light's presence drains it quickly. He's uncomfortable doing the whole song and dance in front of somebody else. It's like very grotesque PDA and he'd rather not have it documented by outside eyes that he almost sort of enjoys it.

He just tips forward on his toes and pulls back the torn scrap of B's shirt, examining the wound where it's sizzling back in on itself. B's alive, if not yet kicking, but he seems to still be in remission-mode, tissue stitching itself back together with just as much violence and, judging from the lock of B's jaw, pain as when it had been ripped open, as if on rewind. "We sent your blood samples off to be tested for abnormalities, but given that your physicals came back fairly normal when we were kids, I'm guessing that we won't find anything." 

He can feel Light's frazzled energy hanging over his back, squinting down cautiously. "Careful," he tells L, "you don't know what you could contract from his blood."

L hesitates for a moment, not out of fear so much as wonder that he's never considered being squeamish about it before. B chuckles for the both of them and lifts his eyebrows up at Light, straight over L's shoulder. "A little too late for that, Kira. Whatever's in me has long been all over him."

L can feel Light growing tenser, coiled, behind him. His nervous energy is a power source that L is feeding on to keep his own locked down, mind in control. "I think I have to go bathe in bleach," he says, and L can't help the corners of his mouth twitching up as he continues on to prod at the skin of B's shoulder that is currently in the process of mending itself.

B coughs, blood bubbling out of his mouth to dribble down his chin like sick. "Besides," he continues, as if Light hadn't said a thing, "diseases and pathogens take to me about as well as bullets. I've never had so much as a cold in my life. My body rejects it. Sweet, huh?" He winces as L tries to peel apart the skin and hold it back from regenerating, eyes closing. "Like lemonade. I'm thirsty for something and there are pretty boys dancing like chandeliers above me but you're going to destroy me, aren't you? I'll crawl back but you'll just keep pulling your trigger. You think you don't need me now that you've glued your crown back together and forced it back on, so I'll have to dig up your skeleton again and fuck it and - "

"B," L snaps, jabbing him roughly in his wound, "stay on message. No time for daydreaming. You can write me a sonnet from your cell, but for right now I need you to focus on the current reality. The power's been cut, and assuming it wasn't you, I need to know who did it."

"You're asking the wrong questions. Tell him, Kira. I feel like my esophagus is about to fall out."

L lets up slightly on the pressure he's exerting on B's wound, distantly shocked at himself, as if he's watching some hapless child torturing a small animal, not understanding the connection between his touch and the pained yowling. B is supposed to be the one doing the hurting, that's his role, but L is so vicious and he mucks it up every time. He blinks down at the blood warm on his fingers, and then at Light, who's speaking quickly and concisely, rattling off information like a very uncomfortable encyclopedia.

"It's a Shinigami. Or a girl named Sadie Markovitch. I'm not really sure which, or if they're both the same thing. B says it was because of his blood, which, by the way, can we talk about this for a second?" He gestures erratically at B, who winks up at them like a showpiece, delighted to be injured and abhorred if it means he gets the spotlight. "I mean him. Your subhuman twin who popped up out of god knows where to do what? Make my life twice as gross and creepy than it's already been thus far?"

L straightens, not having any place to wipe the blood from his hand, and ends up just holding it tucked to his chest like an a breakable object of uncertain value. "We don't have time for this right now," he says. 

"Well, make time," Light snaps, "because he tried to give me a blowjob while I was interrogating him and I really don't know where you _find_ these people, L." He's flushed and clammy and panicking more than he's really letting on, and L knows him well enough to see it, and knows B well enough to believe him.

He shrugs. B is wriggling like larvae freshly hatched on the floor by his feet, sticky and sickly and grotesque, and L and Light watch on in mute disgust and interest, the men of science with their lenses and their hypotheses, goggling at something that either cannot be explained or else refuses to explain itself.

"More or less the same place I found you." It's mostly a metaphorical approximation, but it is accurate. The both of them had originally come from Tokyo, and here they all are now, reunited with this stark, bright, illimitable city.

B arches his shoulders back, concaving inhumanly on himself, and then tittering up at Light's expression of dim horror, "Only he found me first." 

"Shut-up, B," L says casually, as Light snaps with a bit more punishment, " _Shut-up_ ," and it'd be a cute sitcom moment if they weren't all varying shades of doomed and tainted with ugly, irredeemable affection. They glance quickly at each other and then quickly away, still almost embarrassed of their similarities.

B watches with starry eyes and he's dancing on the edges of lucidity for a show and a show only. L knows he's awake inside, and he's probably angry. "If you want to calm the beast you have to feed it." 

Light's nostrils flare and he's obviously wondering if this is another blowjob thing. L says, waving his gun, "I have four more rounds, so I hope you're hungry." It's barely more than a vague shape in the dark, not enough light to even cause a glint.

"No, no, that's too rich and heavy. I want something pure, like they have at church. Body and blood, you know the drill."

His wound has sealed itself and L assumes he's only still on the floor as a sort of game, and so it's important to play this very carefully. "Don't talk to me about church," he says, and kneels down again.

" _L,_ " Light snaps, gripping his shoulder to try to pull him back. "What are you doing?" It might be outrage and it might just be that it's too dark for him to see properly.

"Feeding the beast," L says, slowly, lullingly, and he knows what B wants and he knows what he has to do to make him talk. It was always games like this, tricking and taking and then taking back, hungry minds and grasping hands and all the denial in the world. L leans in close enough that he can see his eyes. This feels pornographic, like he's performing, and he is, for a live and livid audience and this is quite a pathetic jab if it's all B is looking for, to make Light jealous and hope that L feels bad. He dips his head down and stops briefly to wipe the blood off of B's mouth with the hand that's already dirtied, then moves close as close can get, like they're going to touch, like he's going to let him have what he wants. 

The other hand moves so quickly and B opens his mouth, straining up for scraps of love or something like it, desperate to be haunted and consumed as well as to haunt and to consume. He's the the monster skittering between the pages of every storybook, but he is also a twenty-two year old convict with no face of his own, only a trembling voice and claws and a desperation burning so bright and ugly in him it sometimes snuffs every other part of him out. L feeds the flame. L shifts and pulls his face back, instead shoving the gun into B's parted lips and taunting him with a meal he doesn't want.

"I'm not," he says, "messing _around_ , Beyond. This isn't a game. People have died and will die and I need to do my job and sort it out, so will you _please_ , pardon my rough manners, tell me what the hell I want to know?"

B's eyes goggle at him, glassy and amphibian, and L wants to lay him down to sleep, wants to drain and destroy him just as much as he wants to set him gently on his feet and beg him for forgiveness, because a part of him knows that the only reason he's doing it this way is because Light is watching. There would doubtlessly be violence, but alone L might have gone ahead and kissed him, might have spread over and on and in him and pulled all the answers to the riddles and the keys to the locks out with shaking, loving, hating hands, instead of the impersonality of a gun and a threat. His lips spread obscenely around the barrel of the gun, mouth wet and open, and if L had room enough in his body for it he might be a little turned on right now.

Light is grinning over his shoulder. "This is extremely suggestive,” he says, voice slick and satisfied like the honey that drips from him in his power-high moments.

"Thank you," L replies flatly, "Japan's top honors student, for that productive and insightful commentary." His hand shakes a little as he speaks and the gun knocks around in B's mouth, jutting at his throat and making him spasm with pain where he's cornered under L's body.

Light says, with a tone of awe that makes L force his grip steady, "You're such a vicious person."

L doesn't know what to do with that so he takes it and folds it up and puts it in his pocket. B grins as well as he can do around the barrel and L knows what he's doing before he's doing it, but it's really simple, he's made it really simple for him and all he has to do is curl his lips in and suck, coiled-down body jutting upwards in the middle parts, and this might as well be torture porn. His hips move toward L's and his eyelashes bat in a farce of kittenish seduction. 

"Don't do that," L says, but he's already doing it. He wouldn't be surprised if B bit the gun right out of his hand and swallowed it. He plants his bloodied hand down on B's chest, shoving him back against the wall, and B's teeth knock the gun with a ricocheting clink and he laughs but it's garbled, demonic, like it's going through a modulator and L feels it and he feels Light's hand hovering over his shoulder, but not touching it. Maybe he doesn't want to be a participant. The spectator seats keep him clean.

"This is gross," he tells L, nearly casually, as if he's never been so down and dirty. 

L's too old and too tired for this pettiness and there's a part of his mind that's floating in some conjoined ether with B and B's body and B's blood and the shadowy dips where B's eyes should be, pulled into cavernous exaggeration by the lack of light, hollow and skeletal, a familiar night time landscape where there are trees and sky and cigarette smoke from the pub they would camp out behind, telling horror stories both real and imagined, pushing and pulling each other in the way the moon would pull the tides if the ocean was bone dry.

But the part of him that has been sparked new and alive, torn from his past like a decent passage from an otherwise terrible book and taped, with sure and tremoring hands, Light's hands, to a thin collage of grand ideas and master plans, kissed shyly and hatefully on his forehead, reinvented but different in no ways perceptible, made new as one is through a cheesy baptismal ceremony in some bullshit new-age religion: that part can't stay still or quiet. 

He turns his head, only for a moment, just long enough to bark, "Well then, why don't you wait in the other room while Mommy and Daddy have their grown-up talk?"

He knows it's the wrong thing to say both because Light will collect it, tie it like a fine white string around his neck later and watch him choke, and also because the momentarily heated shift of L's interest gives B enough leverage to, in that split second, jerk his head sideways, knocking the gun from his mouth and wheeling his curled up leg around to jut up and into the tender parts of L's gut.

L's thrown off balance but maintains his hold on the gun, though it does him very little good when he's elbowed in the back and has his feet kicked swiftly out from under him, falling flatly and gaspingly forward on the cold tile floor that greets him like an unwanted guest. Light swears and it's more graphic than L's ever heard him, but even so he hopes that he sits this one out and doesn't get himself even more damaged. He's about as good without his little black book as a headsman is without his axe, and B's the Hydra who keeps growing back twice as bad no matter how many times you cut him down.

L's chin stutters against the ground, his senses jittering with the blow, and he's clawing himself back up if only for another hit when B's bare foot crushes down on his spine, locking him to the floor. His abdomen feels like it's too big for the skin it's locked under, flesh suffocating his insides, and then B's other foot comes to rest on his back and the pain is ragged and hot and crushing but it's something that he knows how to funnel, a thing he was built to withstand, but the humiliation of being _stood on_ is a little blinding and the rage that boils up in his trigger finger comes to a screeching peak. 

"You okay down there, Daddy?" B hums, coquettish and glinting with the superiority of a child taking the upper-hand in a playground game.

L would very much like to respond by shooting him in the face and, given B's proclivities, he would probably very much like him to, just to know he'd struck a nerve with his wriggly pale toes, but then the pressure is thrown off balance, and L scrambles up and out from under him as B falls sideways against the wall under Light's hands.

"That's for my fucking nose," Light snarls, arm jutting back to fly out again and slam into B's cheekbone, and there's none of the coiffed schoolboy prettiness left in him, just a dirty angry animal, jumping into the grown-up games like it's all old hat to him, and L is honestly a little bit proud.

 _I made that,_ he thinks, because even if Light dug himself a rough outline from stone, L is the one who hunched long hours over it, carving in the intricacies of terror and ruthlessness, the maddening luxuries of the fight and the win, like an artist laboring over a masterwork. 

Light keeps hitting and B writhes under it in what is either ferocity or enjoyment and L shouts, "Move!" as he points the gun up, and Light listens, turns to see him and dodge out of his line of fire, but just as L's exerting the pressure on the trigger, B moves too, tackling him like a rowdy dog on its owner and jerking his wrist backwards, and it's all back to square one.

Except the clang of the bullet nesting in the tile wall never comes, and there is a hushed grunt of something human, something _pained_ , and a metallic sound as something falls, and footsteps, shaky and unhurried, like whoever it is still hasn't quite realized they've been shot.

L pushes himself up and squints at the dark, can't make out a face, just some shadows that are less deep than others, but B must see something he doesn't because he grins from where he's collapsed next to L, posture going lazy, and he calls out, "Nice of you to join us, Quillsh." Then adds, with a snort, "Well, maybe not so nice for you." 

And of all the people in this building L would not have minded shooting, Watari was not on the list.

 

\---

  

Touta is the one who answers the door.

Everybody is huddled like disaster victims, but in cliques, the cops separate from the doctors separate from the loose, undefined group that is held together only by being L's. Orders had trickled down the ranks that they were to regroup here, and even though Nishikawa and her nurses were meant to be kept out of the loop to prevent a panic, the gunshots from the lower levels had sent her barging after them, nightdress askew, squinting up from her diminutive height and demanding that he and Ide, whom she'd particularly referred to as "a couple of uniformed dandies," tell her what's going on. They hadn't, but they probably would have had they known.

Watari had gone out to investigate the shooting alone, to no one's satisfaction, but he'd had a rifle so he'd had the last say.

Aizawa paces. Ide reads a magazine like he couldn't care about any of this, but his hands are trembling. Mogi makes coffee, quietly, dutifully. Aiber and Wedy huddle together, whispering and almost laughing, and Mello, the boy, hangs around at their edges like he's not sure if he's invited. Nishikawa is cursing indiscreetly to the pretty, timid nurse at her left about L. Touta is doing nothing, and saying nothing, and so when there is a knock on the door, he is glad for the occupation.

What he expects is maybe Light, pale and scruffy, escaped from his shackles to put this situation to rights, or else L, angry and bedraggled, hunching in with an explanation and a solution. Maybe Misa in her prisoner's garb, skipping prettily, assuring them that everything will be fine, the electricians are en route, it was just a system malfunction - _three_ system malfunctions - and that there is nothing to worry about.

What he gets is shoved out of the way as soon as the he turns the lock, hit with the sharp smell of flesh, and L is there twice, and Light is there once, and Watari only looks half there.

"Oh my god," Touta says, dumbly, because he always says the things that everyone else is too smart and serious to say, and he doesn't know what to do, or where to put his hands, so he just holds the door open, fingers clammy against the handle, same as any date he's ever been on.

"What the hell happened?" Aizawa demands, and Touta thinks, that's better, he should have said that.

No one is answering, though. L just says, "Move," chasing Ide off the largest sofa and knocking away the selection of decorative pillows to make room for Watari to be set down. B - the violent, dangerous, _supernatural_ criminal that is meant to be locked up in a straightjacket and a cell right now - has got him over his shoulders, in a sort of piggy-back stance, Watari's slumped shivering body being lifted off and deposited on the sofa like a bit of luggage. There's blood on both of them, more than enough for one person. There's blood on L's hands, like finger-paint. There's a thin band of it circling in smudges on Light's wrist.

"Fuck," Wedy says, pulling her gun from its holster and turning to B, "what did you do?"

The man that is a monster puts a hand to his chest, as if wounded by the remarks, and maybe he's going to speak, but L cuts him off in a curt, controlled tone that spells underlying panic. "Shut-up. Not now." He flicks his eyes to Nishikawa, who is watching on with keen interest, like a bird of prey spotting its lunch. "Doctor, do you have any equipment with you in here?"

She shakes her head, walking over to inspect Watari. "Just my hands, Ryuzaki."

He nods fiercely, reactively. "Wedy, go with one of the nurses and bring whatever we're going to need, and _quickly_." He looks around at the rest of them. "Anyone have a knife? Somebody get me a knife."

Wedy reaches into her boot and pulls out a small slip of a pocket knife and tosses it over to him before turning, with the pretty-eyed nurse, to follow orders like the professional she is. Touta is still holding the door. He lets it go after her with a clank that is drowned out by the din of voices. 

"You shouldn't have moved him," Nishikawa snaps, as she holds the fabric of Watari's shirt away from his chest so that L can cut it.

"I know," L says. "Someone please bring one of those flashlights over here. No, _closer_."

"I insisted," someone breathes, slow and rough and wheezily, and Touta takes longer than he should to realize that it's Watari. But that means he's alive, that means this is okay, they'll all be okay, everything will turn out and -

"I tried to contact emergency services," L rattles off, "but there's no landline or cell phone in the building that will work, and the system has gone into shut-down, which means that none of the entrances or exits will work without specific clearance from the override back-ups, and the back-up system is down, too. The only other exit is the roof and since the elevators aren't working, that'd be an even steeper climb than it was getting him here."

"Should we send someone up there?" Ide asks.

"No," L and Light both say at the same time, and then stop off, nearly embarrassedly, but there's obviously no time for this sort of tomfoolery, and Light covers quickly by mumbling, mouth thin and shoulders stiff, "It isn't safe."

"It seems we have an intruder," L tells the room at large, though his voice is hushed and wispy, "and not of the wholly human variety." Touta looks at B. Everyone, actually, looks at B, who just raises his eyebrows and maybe blows a kiss, but it's hard to tell. He's slumped down in an armchair, feet kicked up on the coffee table, and he's staining everything but he doesn't really seem to care. "No, I mean another one." L yanks back the room's general attention. "It's best to stay as close together as possible. Where is Wedy with my equipment?"

"You mean _my_ equipment?" Nishikawa says, hands moving swiftly and delicately over Watari's wounds, not quite touching the afflicted area - a nasty bullet tearing up his shoulder - but preparing the places around it. "You're going to have to step back and let me do my job, Ryuzaki."

"I have full medical training and field experience,” L starts.

"I don't care at all. You're filthy, your hands are shaking, and your emotional attachment to the patient will make you sloppy." She pushes her glasses up her nose, losing any interest in L or his impending, teeth-grit response, and looking back to Watari. "Can you breathe alright?" 

He nods. "It's not much harder than usual. There's no exit wound, I know that much." He hushedly shares his insights into his own medical condition, which is impressive and a little worrying to Touta.

He's only ever been in a situation like this once before, and he had been eleven and home alone when the house next to his had burnt down. He'd stood gawking out on the street with the rest of the neighbors, getting in the way of the firemen and the ambulances, being shooed this way and that. He had barely known his next-door neighbors at all, had never spoken to them in more than polite hellos and goodbyes, and a few tittered endearments to their miniature schnauzer. The dog had died in the fire. The wife had died in the fire. Touta is not sure if she'd been pregnant or if that had just been a tragic embellishment he'd added through-out the years of quivering through this story in his head. The husband had been brought out on a stretcher, burned and mottled and crying out, and somehow the information had become confused and Touta had nodded along to whatever was asked of him, and so everyone had mistaken Touta for the man's son, and brought him with them in the ambulance, and had him hold the man's hand. Touta hadn't even known his name. He'd kept saying, "I'm here, I'm here, it's gonna be alright," to a stranger.

It had not been alright. The man had died in surgery and Touta had called his parents from a hospital pay-phone, pulling them out midway through his older sister's clarinet recital to come pick him up.

"Sloppy," L repeats back, like he doesn't quite understand the word, but he doesn't argue any further.

 

\---

 

Watari is stabilized and moved to one of the bedrooms, leaving the sofa bloodstained and Light slightly disappointed. He would have quite enjoyed the fallout of L having killed his own handler, the struggle and the self-reflection, leaving him quivering and rife with self-doubt, like a freshman with low self-esteem that Light could coax into bed. Just as well. Light can coax him anyway. It would have been nice to have Watari out of his hair and off the hit list without having to lift a finger, but he can always put a pillow over his face while the cameras are still down if he needs to.

They've gone into the hallway bathroom to wash, as the plumbing is still working and it's hard to keep order when your fingers stick bloody to everything. B had needed it most so he'd been cuffed and led off by Wedy and Aiber to clean himself in one of the dark apartment bathrooms. Matsuda had been sent to bring Light a change of pants, but he hasn't come back yet.

The water is cold, needly and hissing its way out of the faucet. There's not really a reflection to see in the mirror but he watches L's, anyway, and imagines that L is watching his back.

"You should tell them," Light says, wiping his hands on L's sweater because the blow-dryers are out of service. L doesn't seem to notice or care, but when Light speaks he blinks flatly at him over his shoulder. 

"Tell them what?"

Light sighs, leaning back against the wall as L scrubs carelessly at the skin of his palms. "You know what. For how long do you think you can sit on the fact that you shot Watari? It'll only come out eventually, and make you look even worse than you do now for not being upfront about it. Which, if you want to know the truth - "

"I don't," L snaps, ducking away from Light's fingers as they reach up to cup his chin. He keeps washing his hands even though they look clean, water sluicing baptismally over his skin. "You just want them to distrust me."

Light rolls his eyes. "They already do." He reaches over to shut off the sink. The water goes hot before it goes off and L winces, but doesn't jerk away. "I just think things will be better with all the cards on the table."

"You want to lecture me about honesty? Really? That's charming." Light can't tell if L is grinning at him in the dark, but the bite of his words suggests an ugly snarling humor, the kind that Light likes to breathe in and rhapsodize about. He shakes off his hands, then wipes them on his shirt sloppily. There are dark flecks of blood still there but L doesn't care because L never cares about anything, and Light kind of likes them.

He stands up straight and pulls L's hands into his, as if to examine them. It's not as if he can see much in the dark, but the feel is what matters. He's tensed, the tendons in his wrists coiled for action. Maybe he'll hit Light. Maybe again and again and again. There's so much going on that there's not even a slip of opportunity for that, but he craves it like he craves water. He's parched for it. This is what he'd missed and what he continues to miss. There are too many people around.

"I'm lying to protect them," he tells L. "They wouldn't understand the truth. They'd try to stop me and I'd have to kill them. You're just trying to protect your reputation. It's different."

L scoffs. He jerks like he wants to pull away, but it's a game of ego and of resolve, as everything with him is, and he instead traces unyielding patterns on Light's knuckles with his thumbs, writing ugly love poems and refusing to be cowed. "Really? So, you'd off your own father if he found out about your identity?" He doesn't sound shocked. He probably isn't, more likely he's hoping that someone is listening around the corner and and will hear the incriminating response. Light had been sure to lock the door, though, and he's kept an ear on it the whole time. He's not an amateur and L's attempts to trip him up are almost a little insulting. 

They should be past this, and he only forgives him on account of recent trauma, which he'd caused for himself, with his trigger finger and his need to play dirty with the skeleton that’s wormed its way out of his closet.

Light says, melting into the soft stroke of L's skin against his, "I'd do whatever I had to to save the world. It would hurt me, but I'd make the sacrifice for the greater good." 

"How very selfless of you. And what about me? I'm standing between you and your bright future. Aren't you willing to make a sacrifice of me?" He's speaking loudly, not mumbling the way he does, being very blunt and open, which means he's hiding traps and triggers in the spaces between his fingers where Light's slot in nicely. He's never not baring his teeth, even when his mouth is closed. 

Light smiles at him. "You're… a work in progress."

"Am I?" L lets go of his hands. "You still think you're going to be able to sway me over to your side if you bat your eyelashes for long enough? Did the scene on the street not make an impression?"

Light's jaw grits to think about that, so he doesn't think about that. "I already have you. That was just posturing. You were feeling powerless and you wanted to prove you were still in the game. Fine. We're playing. We'll always be playing." He takes steps forward. They always end up in bathrooms, cupboards, cramped quiet rooms, taking up each other's space. "You couldn't get rid of me if you wanted to, and you don't want to. I'm in you. You're in me. Bring all the old boyfriends around that you want. It doesn't mean a thing to me."

L blinks. Maybe he's surprised that Light had out and said it, naming his ploy and thus rendering it powerless.

He doesn't step back, but he looks like he wants to. "That's not what B is. Or maybe it is. He's what I can't get rid of. You're an amateur parasite compared to him. He's been sucking my blood like a leech since we were kids. Does that make you jealous, I wonder?" He takes their proximity then, like a bind, power power power, he goes wild for it. He'll use anything to reel Light in and pin him down. "Or is your ego inflated enough to buoy you past the competition?" 

They're so close now it's stifling. "There is no competition." 

The pieces of L's eyebrows that have grown in quirk and he nods. "Ego it is."

There's a tired terror but it's mounting into tension, pulling them in. L's taller than him when he stands up straight, which he does now. Only by a bit, their lips are still more or less across from each other. Light has a scab on his that their sex earlier had set bleeding again. He should let it heal, he should stop aggravating all of his wounds.

There's a heavy knock on the door, dropping down in between them like a cool, swallowing dunk, washing the stain of attraction into a diluted alertness. 

"Ryuzaki? Light?" Aizawa calls, with his usual disinterested irritation, though it's prickling with edges of panic, the kind that crawls out during midnight emergencies. "Are you done in there?"

L tilts his head, face open expectantly, though in the most locked and fastened way, mask firmly stitched on. "It's like they expect to find us with our pants down," he mumbles. "Come in, Aizawa!"

The knob twists, making a clunky metal noise, but nothing comes of it but aggravated grunting and Light tries not to smile, but doesn't put in enough effort to succeed. "I locked the door," he tells L, moving to undo this bit of mischief. "I didn't really know whose pants would be where." As soon as the hinges creak Aizawa in, the glare of his flashlight blurs Light's eyes, wiping his expression clean. He rebuilds it, painting his eyes and mouth in stripes of nervous sobriety. "Do you have a change for me, then?"

Supposedly he'd gotten bloodstains on his pants, and no one had asked to see evidence. Maybe they'd known better than to hope.

"Do I look like a delivery boy to you?" Aizawa snaps. It's hard to see him where he is behind the light, and Light doesn't lower himself to squint. It gives you crow's feet. "Matsuda's practically ironing your slacks on the coffee table." He turns his flashlight on L, like an interrogating officer breaking up a couple of kids on a late night. "Watari's asleep and expected to recover alright, assuming we can get him to a proper hospital by morning - "

"Unnecessary," L says. "I've known him to get on fine in even more dire circumstances with uglier wounds."

Light's not sure if that's the truth, or if he's just trying to keep everyone calm. Either option seems too gentle for him.

Aizawa frowns. "Fine. But everyone's scared, and cramped, and we want answers. Ide's half ready to storm every possible exit and no one knows where Amane is. Whether you like it or we like it, you're our leader and as you're the only one who has even the vaguest idea of what's going on right now, your presence is damn well required." 

"I actually think Light has a better idea than I do," L tells him, moving into his slump. "He had quite a nasty experience down in the lower cells. That's what he gets for not staying put in his room, I guess."

"And that was all before Ryuzaki arrived," Light adds, plastic smile twitching into frozen life on his face, "and we had a nasty experience with a gun."

L doesn't blink, but Light knows he's spackling up the ramparts, mounting his canons, ready to defend and attack. Hungry for the war. He tilts his head, says, "How's your nose doing, Light-kun?" and shuffles forward a little, impotently expressing his superiority through feigned disinterest.

Light follows, like the good boy he is. "Could be much worse. Like your neck. I hope that's not bruising." He barely restrains himself the urge to stroke the marks he's left, if he's left marks. It's hard to tell in this light, but it's okay. He can imagine them.

Aizawa does not seem impressed by the display, probably preoccupied with the issues of actual merit - life and death, safety and fear, tiny mortal things - but his eyes still bulge a bit when L slumps past him out the doorway and says, offhandedly, jerking his head in Light's direction, "He's Kira," before continuing out into the hallway. 

Light follows like the babysitter he is, shrugging at Aizawa as if they're at a similar loss. "He's moody."

 

\---

  

Aiber can see ball sac. He murmurs to Wedy, as B bends down to turn on the shower, "I can see ball sac."

"My sympathies," she tells him. "Just keep an eye open and make sure it doesn't escape or attack, and we'll be fine."

He's holding the flashlight, she's holding the gun, and B's bleeding pink water all over the clean white shower tiles. The glass is getting foggy but it's still easy to make him out. Beyond Birthday, serial murderer. What a stupid name. What a stupid career. 

"You like what you see?" he calls, from behind the pane that separates them, sidling up to it, body pressing obscenely to the glass, showing everything, rippling in full color. Aiber's met strippers with more shame. "There's a resemblance, isn't there? I modeled it after a certain bombshell we all know. Bomb-shelter? Bomb? He's one of those." He jerks his head back in the spray, the white curve of his throat ugly and bright and, yeah, it does look a bit like L's. 

Aiber doesn't say anything. Wedy examines her nails.

"I wouldn't eat for days and days when I was a teenager to stay as scrawny as him. I took up smoking so I wouldn't grow any taller, but I don't think it worked. I would have burned off my fingerprints and stenciled his in if I could have. You wanna know what sacraments are? I have lists and lists."

When L had sent them off to guard the beast while it licked its wounds, he'd ordered that they not engage with him, but Aiber tends to take L's directions as gentle suggestions most of the time, to the detriment of almost nobody. Wedy scoffs and rolls her eyes when he asks, "Why'd you want to look like him so badly?"

B turns off the shower. The clanging of the faucet sounds like a horror movie's prequel to the action scene. "I wanted the outside to accurately represent the inside. He's in me. There's other stuff in there but I don't like it as much." 

Aiber hums. "That's almost romantic." 

"Oh, I'm a real romantic," B says, grinning, and steps out of the shower, dripping on the floor as he shakes out his thick strands of hair. He smells like Aiber's coconut shampoo.

Wedy throws a towel at him, which knocks him quite comically in the face before falling into his hands, and he examines it like some sort of foreign and threatening object before unfolding it, wiping himself down, and then wrapping it around his hair, making a girly salon turban. Below, he's naked and a little bit horrific, ribs jutting, bones stuck together like a precocious child's kindergarten estimation of the human body. Aiber can _definitely_ see ball sac now.

"Yeah," Aiber agrees, "I'm sure the 14 year old girl whose eyes you gouged out would agree." He squeezes out a smile. "I read your case file."

"Did it give you nightmares?" He pulls on the pants that he'd been lent. After going through the line up of present officers, they'd found Aiber to be the only one tall enough to provide bottoms, and Ide the only one skinny enough contribute the top, so he's got a pair of peach slacks and polyester button-up that's surely seen better nights. It's an affront to the eye of anyone with a bit of taste, and Aiber had tried to push the corresponding beige silk shirt and peach dinner jacket, but they'd looked far to loose to fit, and even the pants need a decently scrunched belt to sit right on his hips.

"Not half as much as this outfit," Wedy murmurs. She's making fists with her free hand, twisting her wrist compulsively, and Aiber knows the hunger and how it burns her. She needs a cigarette but this room is too cramped for it and she's too serious to need anything. "The LA case was kid stuff. L doesn't even usually take on murders with such a low body count and so little money involved."

"Gee, I sure was lucky, wasn't I?" B says disparagingly to the mirror.

"Hurry up and stop preening. You're never going to be pretty." Wedy's already moving to the door, slipping her nearly empty pack out of her jacket pocket with the shaky hands of dependence. She's beautiful in the half light, like a Hopper painting, all thick jewel palettes and blonde sadness. She's fragile in her way, like all of them, but she'd bleed out from battle wounds before letting herself be, so he will be her weakness and she can be all strength.

Aiber snorts. The night is too dark and heavy for such kindness, but here it is. There is a ghost in here with them and its glorified cousin is winking at him with a shiny black eye.

"I think she has a crush on me," he says in stage whisper. Aiber knocks him in the back with the flashlight and prods him along, shaking his head and trying not to become fond of anybody. He's got too munch sentiment in him already and anymore would tear his seams.

 

\---

  

The boy's name is Matt and Matt has no last name, no money, and no home, but what he does have is a shit load of weed, coffee, and cigarettes, and it's over a communal meal of the latter that he and Syd get familiar.

"I never met him in person, but he was well known back at - where I grew up. With Mello. There were a lot of stories, and I'm pretty sure most of them weren't true - like the drinking blood, or the rat one, or, ew, there was all this about obscene things done with kitchen utensils - but it's a fact that he killed three people in Los Angeles in 2002, and he was in prison up until a few weeks ago, when he escaped and left behind two corpses and some really weird art room contributions. I've been reading every online news publication about it. He's causing quite a sensation in the US indie zines. I think it's the name."

Matt can blow smoke rings if he tries enough times, and Syd watches on with a vague sort of outgrown jealousy. The teenage version of himself would have been shaken with fits of envy.

"Well, it's a stupid name," Syd says, taking his own uninteresting drag. "No small wonder he didn't tell Sadie about it. She probably wouldn't have brought him home if he had. Beyond Birthday. The fuck did he get a name like that? And who thought up Mello, while we're at it?"

Matt taps his ashes into an empty cup. "You're called Sydney."

"It's a family name," he snaps back. The whirring of Matt's various computer systems sounds a dreary backdrop. He takes another sip of coffee and it's not strong enough. "Look, I know you probably don't believe me, and you don't have to, but Jesus, do you know _anyone_ who could get me in contact with B? Anyone? I'd take an aged aunt or something, I really would. I just need to talk to him." 

"Yeah, yeah," Matt says, waving the hand without the cigarette in it. "To tell him about your dead girlfriend going all zombie, I know. Whether or not I believe you is moot. You've seen Mello and you've seen him safe, so right now you're the best friend I have in the world."

"You lucky dog, you."

"Do you have a phone?" Matt shrugs off Syd's self-deprecation and it's hard to tell if the kid is faking self-possession or if he's just on some sort of prescription downer. Might be both.

Syd tosses him his banged up flip-phone. It's several years outdated. He hasn't been able to afford a new one or cared to, ever since - 

"She's cute,” Matt says when he opens it. Sadie is the background wallpaper. He hasn't changed it since before she died. She's in one of his shirts and nothing else, smiling on an early morning with a cardboard box under one arm and a beer gripped by the neck in the other hand. They'd rescued a pigeon with a bum wing from certain death in the park at the end of their block the day before and named it after some composer, Syd can't remember which one now, and she'd been trying to get it tipsy so that she could examine its wound.

 _"That can't be good for him,"_ Syd had laughed, flipping open his phone, capturing the moment as just one in the ever-growing stack, stretching back to when they'd first started dating - taken with polaroids and film cameras, when that was all there was - and on infinitely, or so he'd thought at the time. 

 _"It's no good for anybody,"_ is all she'd said back, _"and we still drink it right down."_

"I know she's fucking cute," Syd snaps, leaning over the mattress they're sat on either side of. "Give that back." 

"No, whatever, hold on." Matt holds it out of his reach, which is humiliating for Syd, because they may as well be the same age, rowdy children arguing over a toy. He grumps, but he lets it go. "I don't have one of my own. I need to call h - the place I live." 

"Is B there?" Syd mumbles, not bothering to hope very much, because fat lot of good that's ever done him. He sips sulkily from his cooling coffee mug.

"Doubt it. But if anyone's going to know how to find him, it's Roger." He punches a number into the keypad, messes it up, swears, and does it again.

"Who?" 

Matt shushes him, holding up his palm, and waits silent for a few minutes before breathing out and saying. "Grady? Fuck, Grady, it's me. No, Matt, you twat. Yeah, yeah, having a grand old time out here. Listen, can you do me a solid and put Roger on?" He rolls his eyes, glancing at Syd like he ought to sympathize. "I don't care if he's not in his study, find him. This is fucking important. Sir. It's about - shit, it's about B." There's a pause and then whoever's on the other end of the line starts speaking very loudly. "No, I haven't run into him, but I think Mello has. No, I didn't find him - no, shut-up, you try going on a manhunt with a 300 pound budget. I barely made it to London. I just, I met a guy and he's met Mello and he was with a guy who called himself B and fits all suspect descriptions perfectly, and he made them up passports so they could fly to Japan, and now there are extenuating circumstances and we really need to find them and - "

He cuts off and raises a smiling eyebrow at Syd, tilting his mouth away from the phone and stage whispering, "I got this."

Syd nods condescendingly, but he's really rather hoping that has. He's tired of trying to get it all himself. 

It's a quarter of an hour of being switched around between different people and needling information and answers, before Matt stops his mumbled demands and bites his cigarette. "Oh," is all he says, before making his goodbyes and hanging up.

"He's with Elle," he says, but he doesn't look at Syd and he might not even be speaking to him.

"What?" Syd mumbles, slumped forward on the mattress where he'd been for the last ten minutes. "Is that good?" 

Matt shrugs and pats out his cigarette. "It means they'll be easy to get in contact with. He's going to call me back once he's checked in with Watari in Tokyo." 

"Brilliant." Syd doesn't know quite what that means or who that is, but it's nice to have help, even it is from some punk arse kid who smells like a dispensary.

 

\---

 

_Her dresses are always too short and she's always too drunk, tripping, elsewhere. She could have been brilliant if she'd decided to, but instead she's settled into comfortable mediocrity, and she pays her bills and watches her shows and sings her songs and takes home strange little boys, grasping out from her small world into the warm writhing sea of infinity and plucking him in her skinny hands, bitten-down nails making half circles on his skin._

_He fucks her against the refrigerator one day while Syd is at the market and she gets her lemon-lime chapstick all over his face. He tells her that he didn't think that infidelity was quite her thing, and she laughs, high as a kite, and mumbles, "It's not cheating if I pretend you're him."_

_They don't use a condom and he mumbles, "I hope you're pregnant," against the warm skin of her throat, gasping and reeling from the shock and horrific pleasure of being wanted and had instead wanting and having._

_She cups his cheek when she can get herself to move and tells him, looking deeply, probingly, dizzily into his eyes, "You are such a bloodthirsty little fiend. I'd abort it." She kisses his lips, pulling him back on her, and she is ten years older than him as of last week, and ten years prettier and less brittle, and he forces himself into the thin membranes surrounding her thirsty soul._

_"I'd carve it out of you before you had the chance." He's flaccid and she's come twice and they're not even really fucking anymore, just writhing against each other, getting pleasure from the proximity and the depth of ugly feeling._  

 _"You say the most horrible things."_  

 _Her shampoo smells like oranges._  

 _"I_ am _the most horrible things. You still keep me. Why do you keep me, Sadie, Sadie?" Sadie Lillian Markovitch. It's the name above her head and it'll be the name on her tombstone. This is just another second ticking by on the countdown clock. He's gonna kiss her grave dirt. L won't die soon or soft enough, so B has to get his kicks elsewhere. He has to learn death back and forth, hone himself, make ready, sharp and quiet like a blade to slice his way into the right man's flesh and touch the arteries where they pulse. He's kneading himself into proper shapes and Sadie is part of the mold._  

_"Syd likes you well enough," she tells him, fingertips to his face. "And we like the help."_

_He laughs. "You should have just gotten a dog if you wanted a pet to play with."_

_She shoves him off , roughly, and he stumbles back a few feet into the middle of the cramped kitchen, rattling the dishrack that hangs on the nails Syd had drilled into the wall. "That's disgusting." She smooths her hair back, slowly, as if thinking, and then fades into a smile and he smiles back. "I'm going to wash. Syd will be back soon. Tuna salad alright for lunch?"_  

_He nods and she kisses him on the head like the dog she doesn't want._

 

\---

 

B is handcuffed to a chair in the center of the room for nothing but posterity's sake. L's fairly sure he could break out of the restraints if he had the casual urge, and that's why L still has the gun that put a bullet in Watari tucked in the back of his pants.

"Shouldn't we give him the same set-up?" Aiber had asked, pointing a unsubtle thumb at Light and speaking in a voice that was many things, but most notably loud enough to be heard by everyone in the room.

"Priorities," L had answered, which had seemed to quell everyone's raging unease to the degree that they could all stand to be in a room together.

B is the defendant and L is the judge and the prosecutor. The officers sit in an uneven line off to the side, having pulled the rest of the armchairs away from the bloodied sofa, a hapless, makeshift jury. At either side of L, his pale executioners stand stoutly, Wedy with her arms crossed and Aiber practically hanging over L's shoulder. Light doesn't fit into the court scenario. Light doesn't fit at all and shouldn't be here, but he's sitting with one leg crossed over the other in a roller chair off to the right, watching with slitted, curious eyes.

He's cleaner than he had been but he still doesn't look like his usual prom king self.

"So," L interrupts, stopping B midway through his colorful and grinning account, "you had sex with a pretty girl in a kitchen one time. Who hasn't? I fail to see how this is relevant."

Matsuda stiffens visibly at _who hasn't_ , and Ide slaps him on the back, but it's easy to tell that everyone is uncomfortable. The room is crinkling with it. Quietly, the far door opens and Mello slips in, folding himself into the shadows at the edges of the room. He gives L one stiff nod, and he takes that as confirmation that Watari's doing decently enough for this glorified interrogation to continue uninterrupted.

"I'm getting there, beautiful," B smarms, dripping into lazy posture in his chair. He looks like a botched portrait of some dreary count or another, a fop in bright colors, swathed by the deep blacks of the room and the hard sting of the yellow flashlight glow. They'd found a hardy stock of them and now they line the edges of the room like lanterns, making the scene even eerier than it would otherwise be.

No one seems to take well to the pet name. Light aims his chin higher in the air and Wedy rolls her eyes and Ide looks like someone's just informed him of some grim and embarrassing news and he's trying to hold in his outward reaction.

L does what he wouldn't otherwise do for the sake of the unexpected and smiles. "I can and will torture you for expedience," he says lightly.

B tilts his head to one side and everyone else in the room may as well be a figment in that moment. "Your mere presence is torture."

L's eyebrows raise. "I can leave." 

"Come closer." B doesn't have a free hand so he beckons with his chin, jutting and unshaven, a blade gone dull.

L stays where he is. "Tell me what I want to know, and maybe I will." 

They have a matching set of eyes, black on black. They don't honestly look that much alike but for that feature, but B is a mimic by trade and he'd honed himself around that one pinnacle shared trait, carving the rest of himself into a fine white match for the set. L looks at B and looks nowhere else. B looks back. B has never once since the they met looked away. 

From the far corner of the room, L can hear Aizawa's mumbled, "This is about to get weird, isn't it?"

And, of course, it does, in roughly the following sequence: 

"Where did you meet Sadie Markovitch?"

"At a bar. Where does anyone meet anyone these days?”

L takes a step forward.

"Why did you speak to her?"

"She spoke to me first. She was pretty in a girl-next-door sort of way, and very handsy, and she was set to die in three and a half months."

L stops mid-step. Everyone is watching them but if he feels that pressure he won't get anywhere. They're gladiators in their stadium and the crowd is just a roaring sea in the background, crashing against their edges, hungry and angry and shouting its curses and prayers to the oblivious gods above. L is the centerpiece and B is the center and he'd get down on his knees and suck his cock if that's what would get him answers. He would maybe do it anyway, just for shock-value. 

"What does that mean? You planned to kill her? You did kill her, I assume?” 

"You would assume, and I would have done, but that wasn't the game. I just saw the numbers. I see numbers. I see names. Backwards, sometimes, or else I'm just backwards, but they're always there. I tried to blind myself with cleaning solution when I was nine. Roger got very angry. I really wasted a lot of wood polish for no good reason, he said, but it seemed like a good reason at the time. My eyes healed, though, just the same."

"I remember," L says, and he does. Being eleven and wheedling out of Watari through means of distanced manipulation the reason for B's absence from the dinner table, all the while maintaining a facade a complete and utter disinterest and general relief at not having to deal with his constant prodding belligerence and ploys for attention. He'd made a game of sitting at his bedside as quietly as possible and managing not to be heard or sensed, the bandages around B's eyes a convenient filter through which to hide his investment. Inevitably he'd be found out, and B would call out, "L?" somewhat smugly, but quivering, like he'd been strung between superiority and inferiority, an eyeless empty thing grasping with claws at the world around him. L had started to suspect that B would just routinely say his name as a matter of course every few hours or so.

Then the bandages had come off and he had been fine. Must have not gotten it as bad as it had seemed, the doctor said, and everyone had bumbled around their superstition and chosen to believe him.

"You made a miraculous recovery," he continues, and it's a joke between all of them now, because of course he did. "What do you mean you can see names?"

There's a mutter, morphed surreptitiously into a cough, from the back end of the room. L turns and blinks at Mello, who's wiping his mouth with the back of his fist and pointedly looking at the ceiling, the floor, and anywhere but L himself. He sighs. "What, Mello?"

"Nothing. I just… " He falls back against the doorjamb, arms crossing, rearranging himself into his usual posture of feigned disinterest and delinquency. "I'm kind of surprised that you don't know and I do. I mean, I met him last week, and you've known him since you were, like, ten." 

"Eight, actually," B puts in.

"Shut-up," L says, unmoved and not even looking a B, but he's jittering a little on the inside. Just how many previously unknown variables can be in play here? "Know what?"

Mello opens his mouth, but grinds his jaw to a slow stop as he stares past L's shoulder. He juts his chin in B's direction, and loathe as L is to have his line of questioning directed by a fifteen year old who thinks he's hot shit because he'd held a gun one time without even shooting his own arm off, for these sorts of things, it's true that going the source itself - even when not notoriously reliable and straightforward - is more likely to yield accurate intel.

"The last secret." B licks his teeth with his jagged, white tongue. "I waited 17 years for you to figure it out and I would have waited twice that if it meant you'd pursue it out of genuine interest in my complicated inner-workings, but I suppose I'm not allowed to keep it, anymore, huh?" He bites his lower lip, chewing it idly. "I suppose this is the emotional equivalent of a full cavity search?"

"You only wish."

"I sure do."

"Goddammit." Aizawa's clenched fist rattles, where he's obviously straining to keep it as still as possible, against the coffee table. "Stop wasting time. Just tell us what the hell is going on so we can _stop it_ and go home already."

B sits up in his chair, elbows to knees, and bats his eyes at him. "Shuichi Aizawa," he says. He flicks his eyes on down the line, officer to officer. "Hideki Ide. Touta Matsuda. Kanzo Mogi." He turns to face the rest of them. "Mihael Keehl, Thierry Mo -  

"Stop," L says, voice quieter than he means it to be, but sharp enough that it does the trick. B stops, posture slumping into a self-satisfied heap of marrow and concave bones. He's almost as lovable as he is hatable.

"What?" he laughs. "Afraid Kira will take notes?" He shoots his eyes, dilating from pinpricks to bullets, like a beast catching sight of its prey, to Light. "I'm pretty sure he doesn't have his _notebook_ with him right now, L."

"Cute," Light snarls gently from his chair, hands crossed across his lap like every good school boy's shining example, _scout's honor_ personified in his every look and gesture - but L isn't paying much attention to that now, even if B had been right about his reasons for cutting the list short.

He stands, the room following him with every available eye, and walks softly over to B, who stares up at him like he's Christ come down to lay a blessing, and that's a look he knows and isn't afraid to crush with his fists and his fingers and the stilted movements of his hips. Maybe not in front of the crowd.

"L?" someone says, perhaps Lights, perhaps not, but either way he ignores it.

He kneels down in front of B's chair, only one leg bent, like a hushed proposal in front of an awed crowd. He wants them to be eye level, he wants to be able to _see_ , when he asks, "You have the Shinigami eyes?" so quietly that no one else in the room could possibly hear it.

B shrugs, lips parted, still and bent towards L like an eager marionette. "They're my eyes. You might just say I have Shinigami." 

L's brow cinches. "You have a Death Note?" It's a stupid question. Of course he does, but of course he _can't_. Not unless he's had it since he was a child- which, honestly, might account for some of his prepubescent irregularities -

But then B shakes his head, a gentle twitch, and someone in the room coughs uncomfortably because maybe it looks like they're about to embrace and maybe they are. "Never even seen the damn book before."

L's lips open and close. Suddenly he doesn't want everyone else here. Maybe just Light, the three of them alone with death and the question. Questions. Much more than one, but there's only a few that seem important right now.

"How?" he asks, stupidly, a little louder than he should and he knows it grabs the room's general attention, which is straining as it is to hear them. 

B doesn't smile but he might as well. He says, "Don't know. Still wanna carve me open and probe around for answers? I'll hold the stethoscope."

L should step back. His skin is tingling with the promise of discovery, a breakthrough in a life long conundrum, all that he's never allowed himself to wonder about writing itself into a solution for him. All he has to do is follow the breadcrumbs. He barely even cares if B is the one picking the loaf apart and throwing it.

He might actually pull him into a separate room and get slicing, only then the building quakes, the darkness spits out a thick gob of white light, and everything turns into the bright, hazy luster of a near death experience. The room feels like it's been splintered, like a mirror version become real, and he falls forward onto B, who's chair tips back and hits the ground, just as there's yelling from the room down the hall and Light shouts raggedly, "Everybody stay calm!"

Absolutely no one takes the order to heart.

 

\---

 

It takes longer than Matt would like, but shorter than he expects, for Roger to get back to him. Syd is puzzling out the complex mechanics of _Pokemon: Yellow_ when his phone rings, startling them both out of the anxious stupor that they'd, without any other recourse, fallen into.

"Matt," is how Matt answers, because it both circumvents the need for introductions and confirmations and eliminates any thoughts of conversational pleasantries.

"What exactly," Roger asks, obviously equally as uninterested in beating around the bush, "does your source think that Beyond Birthday intends to do in Japan?"

Matt raises an eyebrow, then switches the phone to speaker, so that Syd can hear, too. "Does it matter? Whatever it is, it's bad news, like front-page, bodies-found, no-suspects _bad_. Why? What did Watari say?"

Roger sighs long and uneasy, the breath whistling through his nose, and Syd looks at Matt like he'd for some reason suspected this unflappable source of complex international dealings to, well, not sound like a _Life Alert_ commercial. Too much to hope for that the bastard had read, or even rented the miniseries of, _Tinker, Tailor_ , and comparisons to George Smiley will likely be completely lost on him. 

"Well," Roger tells them, "the customs department at Narita shared that they do, in fact, have record of a man fitting B's description - traveling under the name Rue Ryuzaki - entering the country three days ago."

"Rue Ryuzaki?" Matt repeats, more than a little disbelievingly. He glances at Syd, who just shrugs. "You're kidding, right? I thought this guy was supposed to be a super genius type. I know from experience that high IQ doesn't necessarily mean loads of common sense, but he'd have to be a fucking idiot to use the same alias that he did to do the crime that he was _convicted of_ and on the run from the jail sentence for." He's a little bit surprised that Roger doesn't call him on his language, but desperate times, he supposes. Matt rubs at his temples. "How'd he even get in the country? Japan's locked up tight and that name's gotta launch up every red flag in the book, knowing L." 

Roger swallows. "Yes, well, it's supposed to, but apparently a few weeks prior to Rue Ryuzaki's arrival, Japanese customs - and _only_ Japanese customs, it seems; I'm in the process of checking with other countries - received orders from L to not only waive the suspicions attached to the name Rue Ryuzaki, and also a number of other aliases Beyond is known to use, but to _most definitely_ let him into the country, ignoring any similarities he may have to any wanted criminals on the international no-fly list."

Matt blinks. He looks up at Syd and he can tell they're thinking the same thing. "Someone wanted him in the country," he says. 

"Precisely."

"But I thought L was missing. Presumed dead?"

"He was. And though Watari recently sent word that he's turned up, at the time the order went out, he was still MIA."

Matt is shocked that L is even still alive, though not especially that Roger had neglected to mention as much until now. Need to know basis bullshit, and all. He supposes he should allow Mello an _I told you so_ when he finds him. He clears his throat. "So, whoever was acting as L at the time gave the order. Can't you just ask Watari about it?"

"That was the intention," Roger tells him, tone slanting grim, "but we've been trying every number, e-mail address, and pager in the book for the last several hours and he's _not answering_."

 

\---

 

Ryuk scratches at his chin with one jagged claw, catching it on his leathery skin with every alternating movement, then letting it go again. "I don't think you're really allowed to do that." He'd wanted to say as much when they'd swooped back in from the Shinigami realm and straight into Misa's cell, to drive off the heretical Abomination itself from its plundering of her mind. He hadn't really known the protocol on that, though, or if there even was any.

He definitely knows there are rules against touching humans that can't see you, though. 

"And you're not really supposed to go around dropping your Note, or anyone else's, to earth. And yet." She's stony faced as always, carrying Misa Amane's unconscious body in her arms like the Christian savior in the arms of his mother, post-death, the iconic image of sacrifice and sacrament, or whatever.

Ryuk floats after her.

"Yeah, well, if the Upstairsmen had been sniffing around back then, I probably wouldn't have done it," he tells her. "I just wanted some fun. I don't want to be _unmade_."

"Then," she says lowly, voice unmoved despite the heaviness of the conversation, "maybe you shouldn't be following me around. I'm getting Misa out of here, whether or not I am made to suffer for it later. As I understand it, you have no such attachments, so you'd be best served to sit back and watch from a safe distance, the way you always do."

"Hey, I'm just trying to help you, you know," he calls after her, slowing a bit in the middle of the hall. 

"And I'm trying to help her, which is more important." She adjusts her grip on Misa, glancing briefly back at Ryuk with her one glinting eye. "Vile and virtuous things are gathering in this building, and whichever conquers the other, I don't foresee the by-standing humans coming out unscathed. They never do."

"Yeah, well," Ryuk tells her, huffing, "that's kind of just how the universe works, right?"

"I don't care." 

That's almost a little admirable, or would be if he knew how to respect emotion, or respect anything at all, and he's going to maybe tell her something which communicates that general idea, without being too supportive, should any Upstairsmen be listening for his betrayal. He's only opening his mouth when he feels it, the ground and the air and molecules holding it all together opening up, slithering, arcadian light filtering in through the gauzy cracks in the reality of the now. Something crawls down from the Above.

He could have spoken if he'd needed to. He wouldn't have been heard.

What they've sent is a Watcher and, even, he supposes, a simple human with far less ingenuity than, say, Light Yagami, could probably figure out what such a being's primary function is.

 

\--- 

**tbc.**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let's just wait and see if i can do it, shall we? finishing this fic will give me a very satisfying sense of closure, like finally slaying the beast. cheers, and i hope it was not a huge disappointment to anybody, and if so, well, i accept that. thank you for reading.


	31. apocatastasis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: nonsense!! violence, body horror, excessive religious symbolism, and unhappy tidings. commas, commas, commas!
> 
> i was quite a bit very lazy with the notes last time because i knew if i sat around agonizing over anything else for a moment longer i would never post anything, just like i hadn’t for the past year. but here we are now and this all appears to be happening, so let’s do it right, shall we? thanks to everybody who reviewed last chapter, either because you’d just discovered this fic or you’ve been waiting that whole sorry year for an update (i owe you folks the most thanks for maintaining an interest even now), it really gave me the gall needed to keep on keeping on. the chapter is longer (too long?), perhaps one of the longest to date, and the first quarter of it was written very early this year, and the rest was written, uh… in the last three weeks. the break-off point between those two time periods happens in the middle of B’s scene with the eyeball (you’ll know what I mean when you get there.) everything after that is fresh-grown fall/winter 2k15 writing style from yours truly. i hope the change isn’t distracting.
> 
> the title of this chapter, apocatastasis means: restoration to the primordial condition. it is a concept that appears with different slants in different offshoots of the abrahamic religions, but in this case i’m taking it to mean universal salvation, or the concept that all things eventually return to god, sinners and the devil included. note that i’m neither a religious person nor a religious scholar and so my understanding of these things may be incomplete, and isn’t intended to offend. i just find christian symbolism to be effective in the context of death note since it is so heavy handedly inserted into the canon.
> 
> major influences for this chapter include the history of hell by alice k. turner, and the entire discography of the antlers. i’m not saying you’ve gotta listen to wake by the antlers while reading the last few scenes of this chapter, just that i did while writing them and it makes them ten times better.
> 
> thank you for reading!

_"Earth's the right place for love:_

_I don't know where it's likely to go better."_

\- Robert Frost, _Birches_

 

—

 

Syd hadn't actually believed that they'd send the helicopter until it had landed outside of the World War II hospital that had been serving as Matt's residence, plain black and nondescript, a thing that goes utterly unnoticed at Heathrow when they dock on the landing strip, but which draws a lot of uneasy attention in the seedier parts of central London where they're picked up.

"What, exactly, does the establishment that you come from do?" Syd asks Matt as their scant luggage—a rolled up sleeping bag, an excessively weighted suitcase full of computer equipment, and a plastic bag of snacks—is loaded into the plane by flight attendants that don't make eye contact. He only says 'come from' because 'work for' seems a silly thing to direct at a 15 year old.

Matt shrugs, his bag of pork rinds crinkling in his fist. "It's an orphanage."

"Oh," Syd says, even though that explains exactly nothing.

It's a twelve hour flight to Tokyo, but he doesn't think he's going to be able to sleep at all.

 

—

 

"Everyone, out, to the roof, _go_ ," L shouts, making himself audible over the murmur of panic, pushing himself back to his feet over B's tipped form that lolls, doll-like in a horror movie cliche sort of way, below him.

"What have I been saying this whole time?" Ide says under his breath as he pulls Matsuda up from his lurch and holds him steady, arm wrapped around his shoulder, and though he is snide and thorny, no help yet full of instruction, L doesn't tell him to shut the hell up the way he would like to, because there is not time and it is not a discussion. They need to go, _now_.

"Yes, Ide-san, you are a font of genius whose expertise we would have been well-suited to defer to. Now go, all of you."

The officers stumble over each other towards the exit, a quiet stampede. Glassy green light fogs the hallway, like street sign neons filtered through stained glass. At the end of the exodus line, Aizawa turns and asks, "What about Watari? The doctors? L? L!"

L blinks. He hears his name, title, as if through a tunnel or a badly tuned radio. B is grinning at him from the floor, legs strapped to those of the chair, spread wide and open in their ugly, unsuitably colored trousers. In his peripheral vision he can see Light going for the door, eyes wide and panicky, that gold-leaf command hardened into leaden terror.

Focusing, he says, "Aiber and Wedy will get them. Right?" 

Wedy’s gun has been drawn since the first instance of commotion, and Aiber stands stolid beside her, guard or guarded, it doesn’t matter, he goes where she goes.

"Right."

L’s already dodged out of range of hearing to catch Light by the arm as he follows Aizawa into the hall. "Not you. You're coming with me."

He huffs, shrugging out of L's grasp. "Convenient time to get clingy. And where exactly are you going, because it looks to me like you're just hanging around waiting for the building to go down, which, while not your worst idea ever, isn't exactly your be,”—

"Shut-up, Light." L grabs him by the wrist, bony and warm, and pulls him along to the chair. "Unlock him," he orders, tossing him the key to B's cuffs, before turning to snap, "Mello, go. I don't care who with, just get out. There are flares in the storage closet on the top floor. Shoot from the roof until you're seen and saved." 

"But,”—the boy starts, but L has neither the patience nor spare attention to let him continue, just as Light mutters, "You've got to be kidding me," but still crouches down to do what he's told.

"Don't argue,” L tells Mello. “You don't have the time or the intellect to win. Just get the hell out and, whatever else you do, keep anyone else from coming in." He swivels his glance. "Faster, Light."

B smiles at him from under his lashes, eyes just as jittery and mad when upside down. He says to Light, "Isn't that what they always say?" and is met with a grunt of disgust and a jerk at his wrist that sends him breathing in sharply and mumbling, "Mmmh, I do like it rough, how did you know?"

From the doorway, Mello calls, "You better not die." L would be touched if he had the capacity for such things, but instead feels quite empty of anything but broiling fear and curiosity, and he's more than a little relieved when Mello leaves off with, "At least, not before you've picked an heir." 

"Big inheritance feud?" Light huffs noncommittally from his kneeled position, then continues on without waiting for an answer, "Are you really sure you want him on the loose?"

"No," L says, looking at B, seeing him, staggered, long-limbed, dead man’s grin, and the way the unearthly light seems to part around him, like Noah's sea. "But I'm also likely to need his help."

Light crosses his arms, drawing his jacket tighter around him and they can hear the clatter of the team fleeing up the stairs, Mello yelling, "Wedy! Wedy!" into the steamy dim, and then the screeching of wheels, blond hair glinting over a gurney and the steel sound of a gun clicking awake. They're going to have to carry it up the stairs and L doesn't envy them, but he isn't particularly wild about his own lot in this situation. Nishikawa is cursing in the distance, taking God's name as much in vain as she possibly can.

The voices fade. Reality slithers itself further apart and L's eyes are getting tired. He and B and Light stand in a rough triangle, both of them angled away from each other and towards him. Misa is still somewhere in this building. The glow seems to be growing, spreading out to infect other things, cancerous teeth biting into every inch of the room. Maybe that's just his personal impending sense of doom.

B smiles coquettishly. "Whatever you say, captain." 

Light grits his jaw. "We can't trust him." 

"I," L says, because he knows that, of course; is emotionally compromised, but certainly not blatantly stupid, "can't trust either of you."

"And everyone who trusts _you_ ends up dead." B's still smiling. "Lucky for me that I’m immune.” L thinks he must be enjoying Light's seething glare, by the way he doesn't make eye contact, just basks smugly in it like sunshine, chin up, throat loose, shoulders hanging back. "So, what's the plan?"

L shrugs. Good question. "Find the source of the disturbance, Shinigami or otherwise, and try to contain it. Misa Amane is optional, but keep an eye out. She's blonde, about this high, speaks at an unearthly pitch and will likely run like a dog to a bone if we dangle Light in front of her."

B nods, reaching for an armful of flashlights, pocketing one, tossing one to L, and turning the other on. "I read her file." He licks his lips. "Only thing I like more than a girl in black is one with a body count. She and I are destined to be friends."

Light pointedly snatches the flashlight out of L's hands where it dangles, uselessly, at his side. The brush of their fingers jolts L awake, out of the stunning stupor he's falling into, and he's too busy blinking around at the walls, tilted at strange angles, bending off in wrong directions, slipping past the corners where they're meant to meet and form space, structure, and down and down and away. 

"You're going to stay away from Misa," Light snaps, shouldering past them to the door, and L follows because he should have started them moving a while ago.

He reaches into his pocket. He still has the gun. B and Light sway ahead of him, seething figures in a long dim eternity, and he mumbles, inaudibly, "Does anyone else feel like they're in a funhouse?" Neither of them turn to look at him.

"I was given to understand," B is saying, "that you weren't much fond of her. Protective boyfriend instincts kicking in?"

The annoyance in Light's voice shows through clearly. "It's more that she's my only ally here. And," he adds, "she pays for my apartment."

"I see," is the last thing that L hears. "So, you're a kept boy, then?”

He doesn’t stay conscious to feel the impact with the ground, but his last clear thought is that he ought to sit down slowly so as to avoid a concussion, followed the minutely panicked realization that there are no chairs in the hallway.

 

—

 

He wakes in what is, finding a balance between Dante’s description and his own teeming dark personal perceptions of such a place, probably hell.

His head thrums with the rush of the room that is no room, only a black landscape spanning out around him in all directions, shaky and electrified, tired, physical strain overtaking, insides unsure of how to remain inside and outsides shrinking under the bright cold glare of the eternal emptiness that surrounds.

And there is the eye.

Black pupiled, with a colorless iris, and bright bright eerie whites. Just one. Not part of a set. Floating and excessively huge and staring right at him and into him with the distanced interest of a scientist staring through a microscope. It occurs to L that this is punishment for all of the microscopes he’s looked through, data he’s examined, things studied, pinned down like insects and picked apart. People he’s done it to. He’s in hell, he’s in hell, and he deserves to be here. He bought his ticket with every sin and the suffering he will be dealt is deserved. His very existence demands torment.

He has never believed in God, not even when he was very young, and he has never believed in the devil, but that hasn’t stopped the devil coming for him. 

He tries to speak but it withers in his throat. Human speech is just noises arranged in a pattern that drills itself familiar into your skull. Words are not real. Letters are not real. L is a made up thing.

He wonders when he will be allowed to die. 

And the eye blinks, as if in response, as if it knows him and can hear him think and feel his feelings and know what he knows. Does he know anything? He really believes in this moment that it is all a hoax and that he has never known anything. Facts are made up, too. The universe was a joke and every event is a tremor of laughter echoing from the beginning, the source, but none of it means a damned thing.

He is seen he is seen he is _seen_ and he is not loved or respected or kept or remembered. No one will regret him being gone.

But that’s—no, that’s not true. B, if anybody. If B is anybody. If B isn’t an imaginary friend, a ghost that he made up to haunt him. B, if he is real, has missed him his whole life. And Light… 

Light’s a fucking asshole.

And then he blinks back at the eye that blinks at him and the fog, though it lays heavy and devouring over him, shifts a little, breaking, showing him a tiny taste of reality and he realizes, triumphantly, all in a rush, sweeping in out of the nowhere that surrounds, that it doesn’t matter if nothing matters, because he is not alone in this universe, and if they all get together and decide on something—on the alphabet, on the law, on definitions of evil, and on definitions of love—then that makes it _something_. He exists and he had fainted and he’s being stared at by a giant demonic eye and he’s a bit fucking miffed, actually. This is sure inconvenient.

 _You’re no God,_ the eye says to him, without a voice, but he feels it echo through him and he feels it pluck at his veins and it makes him a little angry, a little jealous, because no, of all things, he was never that, never tried to be.

So, squaring himself up, dredging up enough awareness to speak, he bites back, “You’re a giant eyeball. You’re in my building and there’s no place for you here. Set me down and put me back.”

 _Wrong one. Need another_ , it groans to him, and it sounds very tired and ravenous, and not very intelligent. If this is a Shinigami, it’s on the lower end compared to the models that he’s seen.

“You want the Shinigami that’s been tormenting the city of Tokyo? Fine by me. You have leave to take it.”

 _Need to find it_. _Need to look for it_. 

L’s going to make some crack about it probably being quite good at looking, and then kindly offer to be its guide, dependent upon the agreement that it set reality back on its feet and see to it that none of his people—they’re all his people, the whole rotten lot of them, for this purpose, at least—are hurt. But before he can manage to speak again, he’s forcibly ejected from whatever otherworldly plane he had been yanked into and drops back to the level earth that he had been taken from.

Breath rattling through him, waking sweat-slick and cold and gasping up with a tremoring agony that shivers his bones and his blood, sets him still and blurry, but cognizant, into his body on the floor of the taskforce building, B and Light standing over him and squinting down with cautious relief.

“I’ve never been so glad to see either of you before,” he says, before his voice has really grown back, so that it comes out shaky and muted. “We’ve got quite a problem that might turn out to be quite a solution.” 

And then, before he can properly continue, or hear what’s said to him, a rushing in his ears overtaking the sound of their responses, everything outside of him dimming and thrashing, he turns over on his hands and knees and throws up.

 

—

 

B kneels first, going down quick and spindly before Light can even consciously decide whether or not he wants to display the weakness of concern, and has his hand on L’s back and strokes with a brutish tenderness that disgusts Light, makes him want to rip him away and cut him open and take out whatever is in him, whatever he owns that makes him so forgivable, so irresistible, and parse it apart and swallow it and have it so that they can be wholly done with Beyond Birthday, any mention or acknowledgement of the beast that calls itself that, and move onto a more comfortable two-seater world with no room for anything but he and L, absent of interlopers and false prophets.

But he doesn’t move and B is still stroking L’s back while he retches. The smell is disgusting and Light can’t even get that close.

“What’s wrong with him?” he asks, quieter than he means to be.

“What isn’t,” B replies, and Light doesn’t think it’s the time for smart remarks and is going to say as much, but B continues unperturbed in the next moment. “He’s obviously suffered some sort of profound physical shock to the system. Don’t know why he fainted. He’s not usually such a lightweight when it comes to the macabre, but it might just be overexposure to unearthly fumes. If the obvious extrapolation is correct and I’m part Shinigami—let’s say, on my mother’s side? I really don’t like to imagine one of those big grimy flying things sticking it to a little human female—“

“Alright,” Light snaps, looking up and down the hall for any sign that they’re heard, that something is there and to listen, “yes, I get it, you like to say shocking things. You’re like him that way. Your point?” 

B smiles and stands up, leaving L on the ground, groaning and held up by weak arms. He’s got something in his hands and it glints in the greenish glow and Light only chastises himself then and there, when he remembers, for not realizing that L still had the gun and going for it first thing when he’d gone down.

B clicks the safety off and on playfully. “I’m like him in a lot of ways.” He winks and it’s horrible. He’s absolutely horrible and there’s nothing at all attractive about him and Light would sooner give Misa a firearm than this fucking idiot. “But yes, assuming I’m part Shinigami, that would make me somewhat resistant to any powers they’ve got over humans, right?”

“Conceivably. What about me?”

“Well,” B says, gesturing aimlessly with the gun while he speaks, “in your case it’s a tolerance, isn’t it? You write in that thing every day, you’ve probably soaked up some of the good old death rays into your body. Like a trapper who rolls himself in animal feces to lose his scent, make himself undetectable. Congratulations, darling. You’re practically one of us.”

He claps Light twice, gently, on the cheek, and his hands are clammy and L is barely just starting to sit up below them, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand, and honestly, he looks gross, like a cloth wrung fully of water and left limp and dried out. Light wants to cover him in his arms, doesn’t care for the smell, but L is a guardian, a shield that can sway B this way and that, and one that will surely demand back his gun. 

Light jerks, with evident disgust, out of Beyond’s reach. “So, what are we supposed to do? Carry him?” 

B jags his eyebrows up. “Bridal style? I don’t think you can manage that, actually. A bit too waifish yourself, aren’t you? Delicate little teen idol. No matter. I’ve got him. I’m good at getting him and, don’t worry your pretty head about it, I’ll get the gun, too. Just model walk beside us and I’m sure it will help a lot.”

He’s in the process of lifting L up and Light knows it won’t lead anywhere useful, knows he’ll get himself beaten like before—there’s an inkling of a hope that L will be cognizant enough to stop it, to use whatever hold he’s got on B to reign him in and make him behave—but still he hits him without regard to the inevitable consequences, and the satisfaction of landing a solid punch on his cheek, rattling his skeleton, sending him off his feet, is so viscerally and overwhelmingly satisfying that any resulting unpleasantness feels very much worth it at the height of the adrenaline, the collision.  

His fist hurts quite a lot and B tumbles back, losing his hold on L but maintaining the one he has on the gun. And L, heap on the ground that he is, mumbles, “Light?” up at him, and something that may be, “Not now.” 

And B, of course, laughs and laughs, squinting the eye on the side that had been hit and smiling glassy with the other. He points his gun at Light and he might shoot and he might just be playing another topsy turvy mind game, but either way, it doesn’t matter in the end, because he frowns, and he squints, and he is in obvious grueling physical pain, and then his grip goes loose and his shoulders slack and he falls, from his half-kneeling perch on the ground, face-forward, unconscious, the gun dropping from his hand and clinking brightly across the floor.

So much for his resistance theory.

  

—

 

B gazes into the abyss and the abyss gazes back, in real time, big tired angry eye and nothing else in the whole world around them, and he feels at home here, more well-situated than he ever has in the rambling inanities of human society, the chemical make-up of the world around him, laws like gravity and displacement and things he could intellectually puzzle out but never quite feel on an intuitive level because there is and has always been _more than that_ in him. And of every little boy and girl whose parents tell them they are special, more than average, destined for a grand future and big big things, of all the golden children, Light Yagamis with their bright ideas and unceasing confidence in their particular destiny, and tiny serious atheist children, L Lawliets, who believe nothing innately of themselves but carve out a destiny with delicate white raging hands, it is _he_ , Beyond Birthday of the made-up name and made-up identity, wearing a cellophane-thin human mask, hiding there in plain sight, who is the thing that is _more_.

He is more than human, or he is less, but the answer is simply that he is not. He is something else entirely, parts inside of him not lining up with the others, skin not snug over the bone, but tight, too tight. His bones are too large. He’d always felt he was born in the wrong body, should have been L’s body, should have been his twin, but perhaps that was just projection of a clueless childhood homelessness, selflessness; not in any sense of generosity, but simply meaning an absence of self. He was nothing defined until he was L’s—copy, mimic, stalker, friend, enemy, killer.

But K is for Killer. B is for Beyond.

The beyond, when he meets it, blinks at him and tells him in a language that hurts him and thrills him, grim green pulses of it rocking his human corpse, _You’re a God._

He laughs because he has never pretended to be that. He doesn’t make any sound. The black doesn’t echo but sucks away noise as if into a void, airless, quality-less, nothing but him and the sight which sees him. “Oh, am I? Of death, I think, if anything.”

 _You belong Below_. _You are the scum of the under. Downstairsman. You may stink and speak like a human, but you are not so small nor so dispensable, and I do not smell nor hear. I see only and I see that you are a blasphemous creature. You should not exist at all, but especially not here, and you cannot enter the Above._  

“No? Not an angel, am I?” B grins and the sight touches him, on the skin and inside, deep inside like fucking through every centimeter of his skin, tangy like rot and gold, serenity so sharp and demanding as to pull him downward. He can feel the urge to dive below the thin curtain of the underworld, so far and inconceivable in day to day life, suddenly easy to take by its hand and crawl inside of.

He is at the precipice. A hundred thousand sticky black fingers tug at his ankle and he can’t see them because he can’t see anything but the eye, but he feels them.

 _Made up word. We don’t trifle with human concepts of grace. There is only the Above and the Below and the degrading, transient, mortal middle. That is where you live. Come away._  

“To where I belong? Gonna take me home, huh, baby? Buy me dinner first, at least. Wine and dine and then maybe, maybe, but not before. I don’t think I’m nearly done here on Earth.”

 _You have no choice. You woke the holy powers. You annoy them. You are wreaking havoc and turning the tides of human reality all wrong. You will burn a hole right through to the other side if you go on. I am the first of the repairmen, but there will be more. You are greater than human but still slime, still small, still crushable and filthy. I have no hands to crush you. I am a Watcher only, but what follows eyes is nose and teeth. Throat and gullet. You will be swallowed out of existence, unmade, if you refuse the invitation._  

B wriggles a little but the black has him, noxious and sacred and he feels as if the atoms that make him up are being agitated, tickled hazy and unhappy, and he snaps, “Hey, hey, no deal, daddy-o. Stop it! You’re just a grunt-worker, aren’t you? Heaven, if it is heaven, or an approximation of it, that you’re from, wouldn’t send a hotshot down here to deal with our silly mortal messes. You don’t have that sort of power. Don’t tickle the tip if you’re not down to put the whole damn thing in your mouth.” 

He wags his tongue but he doesn’t think an inhuman otherworldly monster with no sexual organs will really understand the euphemism.

_Can’t unmake you, true. Can’t grow a mouth to eat you whole, but can grow tethers to pull you down to the lower realms. Sent here to do that. You’re too much trouble._

“See, mister—well, you’re not a mister, are you? But that doesn’t matter—thing is, I think you’ve gotten yourself all confused. Makes sense if you haven’t got a brain connected to that optic nerve of yours.” B licks his lips, wonders how to spill the beans best and then just tumbles over, can’t contain so many jolly good twists and turns in himself. “I’m not the one causing all the hubbub down here, bub. I might not belong and I might not be wholly human, but I’m just a Shinigami blend, aren’t I?”

 _Abomination_.

“Yeah, yeah, abomination. That’s me. But Sadie, Sadie? Sadie’s the real bride of Frankenstein in the equation. She’s not even a halfsie, she’s a whole new mess. Baby was just a human girl like any human girl, if a little buzzed in the head, and then she died, like she was destined, like all humans are destined, but yours truly“—and he bats his lashes he for effect because he knows he’ll be seen—“went ahead and got some real wrong baddie blood on her corpse because, hey, if it brings me back to life, would it not work just as well for any of the pretty corpses of my pretty comrades? And, well, good old girl came back, but not quite right and not quite human and not quite Shinigami and not quite anything anybody’s ever seen before, even you, I’d bet, with your big black eyes. And she’s gone all haywire and floats around like a halloween costume shop liquidation sale, killing children and rolling reality around between her skinny yellow fingers and it’s real inconvenient for me and mine, but probably even more so for you and yours. If you’re taking anybody downtown with you, it ought to be her.”

The eye, otherworldly horror that it is, blinks at him. _Sadie, Sadie?_

“If that’s what she’s calling herself still. If she’s calling herself anything. Names are so fickle. That fancy little notebook demands them, and I’m treated to a constant encyclopedia of them in live technicolor, but they’re not really more than trappings, clipped on, shined up, but separate from the thing itself. I am not my name. What I am doesn’t have a name, it’s fleshy, nebulous, distracted, it has no patience, it feeds on everything and everyone, it stretches outward, encroaching, and leaves bloodstains on the curtains, but it is not and will never be the words I made up and stuck to it. There’s no way they can kill me. Nothing can kill me, not even you.”

The eye glares at him, slow and hazed. Maybe it needs glasses.

_The way to kill a Downstairsman is to rob it of it chief function, to convince it to give life instead of take it._

B chews his lip. The skin there is familiarly raw. “You mean save a person, instead of kill them? How very touching. I imagine that isn’t the most common occurrence in the whole universe, huh?”

_Of course not._

“You’re not much for sarcasm, are you, Blinky?”

 _My purpose is to watch. That is all_.

“Then how about you wait around for the body count queen to show herself to you before you cart me off to hell, yeah? Make sure you’ve caught the right fox before you skin it?”

_Abominations cannot be trusted._

“Neither can giant, conscious eyeballs, either, fas as I know, but I’m letting you have the benefit of the doubt. Don’t squander it.”

The air, if there is air, and not just writhing effusive emptiness, vibrates with the force of his watchful friend’s distrust, rage, feelings, feelings if a thing like that can feel, and what can feel and what can’t? Animals are said to only act on instinct but B used to watch the cats in the town, their eyes, their loneliness and distance, and if instinct is what that is then they are all instinct, poets and artists and politicians making speeches, microphoned voices massaging the crowd, it’s all just reaction, one thing, one thing, another, colliding, encompassing, reducing, destroying, straying, staying, quiet times, mornings, looking at someone who is beside you and seeing them see you, it’s all just neurons firing, brain waves sizzling, amping up the voltage, and then kaboom! Kablooie. Anything that speaks has a heart, and the eye sings music in his head, to a tune he’s forgotten, a tune his mother used to sing, oh, if he’d had a mother, she would have sung it.

He can’t die, or he can, he might, he never has before, but he’s never seen a thing like this, either, and nothing really happens until it _happens_ , and you’re cold, dead, dearly missed, hardly missed, whatever, he won’t stake the claim with any surety that he _cannot_ die, but he thinks that he will not, not now, not in this spaceless place, without the other half of the cosmos. One is in him, swallowed down, wafting in his guts, but the other half is outside of him, retching on the floor in the hallway, sick at Kira’s feet, and if B’s gonna go he’s not going alone. If the abyss wants him it will have him whole.

So, he won’t die. He’s decided against it. The only other option, then, is mettle, suavity, a means by which to dredge up some charm and make the thing that stares him through and through dance to his own tune, by his own lips. Conviction is an art, and he’ll show them a masterpiece.

 _The Watcher can only see one thing at once_ , the song titters in his head. _I will set you down to look upon the other, Sadie Sadie, but you must know that if you have spoken falsely, you will plucked up again, and you will be dashed from this plane without interrogation, without time for spinning tales_. _At least one must return with this one, or the Above will sizzle with blessings, and the Below will boil, rising from the seas, dark dead things long past returning on the tides of the unrest you have caused_.

B is getting a little heady with it. He’d had apocalyptic dreams as a child, and he lives apocalyptic realities as a grown man. “Neat-o.”

The eye glares, the space around him wobbles, noiseless, and then mounting, bleating, the rush of the colorless growing colorful, and haywire, and green, green like a witch’s brew in a storybook, green like the vast South American jungle, the river at first light, the river and all the fish bones and his small white hands plucking them up and sucking their flesh. Monster is the word, but his body is bones and sinew, he runs like an animal, he eats, he shits, he even sleeps, sometimes. He’s been so lonely for so long, and his arms have been ready.

Where he falls is between two boys in mismatched clothes, in the green light, in the press between worlds, the part of the song where the bow breaks and the baby falls, and L is sitting up, lucid, but harried, and Light is standing, staring down at both of them, stiff like rigor mortis, and Sadie, Sadie is yelling in the distance, cursing him, her long legs, her hours, her tortured and torturous mind, ambitions fought and then lost, and a fall in the kitchen, something as harmless as the kitchen, and it’s gone and all she has is a grave and a yard, and then him, his blood, and suddenly rage. Why rage, though? Why rape? Why not just death?

He blinks and his eyelids hurt, eyeballs dry, he’d been staring that whole time, unable to look away. The building jitters and then stills. 

“What did you say to it?” L asks him, and he just smiles and lols against the wall behind him, grinning at them both, at Light and his bare feet on the cold floor, his anemic panic, his stillness, his aborted concern, and L drained, L an unholy man reeling from a holy experience.

“Oh, just fed ‘em some of the old Birthday family charm,” B trills.

L squints at him, almost giddily, overwhelmed by the cataclysm of the, well, world beyond. “There is no Birthday family.”

“No charm, either,” Light scoffs at them both, squatting down uncomfortably beside L as if to stake claim on some by-now vastly unimportant territory. “Now, can one of you invalids please tell me what the fuck is happening?”

“Earth is being invaded by a giant eyeball.”

Light’s mouth twitches a bit and if B hadn’t already fallen down he can bet he would be getting knocked on his ass right about now—or at least, the very gentle boy would be trying again to get him there—but Light just flits his line of sight along to L, the grit of his jaw begging that someone, him of all people, take the moment seriously.

B is entirely too chuffed when L nods and says, “More or less.”’

 

—

 

Misa is floating.

The psychic in the old town, and her table, and her cards, big rocks on her fingers, glinting, excessive, weighty and beautiful. Mama loved her rings, and would ask at the emergence of every new one about the origin, the price—too much, too much, if you want a ring like that, Misa-Misa, you’ll have to find a man to buy it for you—and then she’d sit in her chair, cross her ankles, set her fake leather purse to the side and spread out her palms. _Your lifeline is short, Amane-san._ And her ringing laugh, all bedazzled, but hollow and blue and porcelain on the inside, she’d hit the same notes when she’d cry, and Misa in the corner, Misa with her coloring books and her blurry eyes—she refused to wear her glasses then, and they hadn’t yet gotten her contacts—and all she could see was the glow, ambient, wavering.

_“Tell me happier news, Uranaishi.”_

And then Misa would be sent out of the room, and when her mother came out after her, thirty, fourty-five minutes later, she’d be bleary-eyed, wobbly, and calm. 

Misa is floating. She thinks she is a witch, she has done a spell upon herself, she is free, she is weightless, she will flutter on out of here and into the open night like a balloon all filled with air, and she will go, she will go, she will—

She is being held. Something is holding her, invisible, formless, but immovable. Her muscles are starched tight and she has never been strong, she has never been a fighter, but she rumbles and she roils and she has _been through too much of this shit_ , cells and bonds and men through microphones who think they know things, they don’t know things, there is nothing to know, there is no such thing as fortune telling, no spirit possession, no floating around over tables, no great truth, no crystals, no secrets that haven’t already gone viral, just messes, and messes, and cold hands stripping her of her clothes, putting her in scrubs, bringing her cups of water, and the endless interrogation to which she never has anything to the say.

But something is holding her.

Her throat hurts, crisp and cold, underutilized, and when she screams it doesn’t come out in words, no pleas, just noises, animal, vicious, and she shakes, she quakes, she will not go soundless, she will not go at all.

The grip that has her shifts and she shifts with it, silenced by the jostle of her body against the nothing that locks her in its grip, and then there is something, sensation, thin and papery, not hands, not skin, on her arm and then everything rushes in at once, and she sees the pen, and she sees the page, and she sees the body count rise one at a time, so fast, blood, blood, on her hands, on the front of her dress, and her sheets, and his sheets, and him hating her in the bed she bought him and knowing how and why and what she has done, where she got her iron and her fight, and who put the weapon in her hands.

“Rem,” she gasps, small, minute, barely out of her, could be a meaningless exhalation, could all be meaningless, except she’s told now that it’s not, and she’s taught her own history, in her own voice, well, what a beautiful way to die. “Rem.”

“I’m here, Misa.” She hears the flutter of pages and Rem’s skin is cold, fishy, foreign, and consoling. She smells like nothing and the beating of her wings makes no sound. At the beginning there was a little girl with blurry eyes, and here, here is the end, here is the girl is grown, but still she can’t see, everything is dark, everything is suspended around her in caverns, and she can’t see the bodies, she’s never seen their bodies, but she doesn’t think she would feel pain if she did, doesn’t think she’d feel a thing, and doesn’t feel a thing, except this: cold skin, callouses on her fingers, unwashed, sweating, hidden in the depths of the night.

She wraps her arms around Rem, holds and is held, and asks forgiveness from a lesser god.

There has never been anything of human experience, life in the world, among the people in hats and jackets and tennis shoes, to prepare her for the eventuality of transcendence, of meeting another world and becoming part of it. Rem is alien, inhuman, not earthly at all, but she is a comfort, even as she says, lowly, voice so heavy, always dripping out of her, “Misa, we need to get you out of here.”

“I forgot,” Misa murmurs, unable to take hold of a thought and make it stand still in front of her, “I forgot you.”

“It doesn’t matter now. You’re in danger. You are hunted. One has already attacked you, and the other, the worse, will be looking for you. The Note stains you with a particular coloration, a disfigurement, if you will, in the Grigori’s eye. It will not see your hair color, your body, your hands, only the shapes that the Note has left on you through your use of it. If it mistakes you for the Abomination, it will take you down with it, into a world in which you do not belong.”

“The,”—words and words that she doesn’t understand, concepts like hell blurry inside of her—“what?”

“Abomination. A sacrilegious creation, born of a human and a Shinigami. Sickening. Or, anyway, the natural order of things is sickened by it, the universe itself quakes at its existence. Balance is threatened, and a lot of long-winded rhetoric of the like, and though the universe looks the same as it ever has to me, the King will not sleep again until the Abomination comes home and the Upstairsmen leave us be.”

It’s like literature, the kind they make you read in school, convoluted, skimmed over, too many words she doesn’t recognize. “A Shinigami and a human can—? Ew, that’s….”

Rem makes no expression. Her grip on Misa’s waist loosens slightly. “Whatever you think it is, it is. We have no time to debate specifics. What matters to me is preserving your life, and for that, we need to leave this place.”

“What about Light?”

Rem flicks her eye unsubtly over her shoulder. “He’s… gone.”

Misa feels the chill creeping up her back. She doesn’t want to go to the underworld, or whatever, but she will not run while he fights by himself. “You’re lying to me, Rem. For a god, you’re not very good at it.” She flexes in the clammy grip that stills her, testing her bonds. One prison after another, and it’s always the love you don’t want that follows you, holds you in its arms, tells you things, tells you it will save you, but it’s lying. 

Nothing will save you, you have to be the savior, you have to put on your boots and hold your pen tight. 

“Put me down, Rem. I need to find him. I need to protect him.”

Rem’s grip doesn’t let up. “You must know that there is absolutely no way I’ll do that. I’d rather he die and you loathe me for it eternally than let anything happen to you. You are worth so much more than him, you deserve so much more than what he gives you. I don’t mean my love, which is indecorous, otherwordly, and foul to you. I mean your own life, your movies, travel, a man who will be kind to you. Anything but him. You deserve all the slim beauty of this human plane, and none of the horror of his world and mine.”

“This world is his. I’m his. I need to do this, Rem. I don’t want my movies, I don’t want kindness. I want love, everything terrible, everything angry, unfair, and cruel. I know it’s not _good_ , I know it’s not what I deserve, but it’s what I want. If I can’t save him, then there was never any hope for me, anyway. I am his shield, I’m his eyes, I’m a small goddess, but I know death. I have its stain on me. If he goes to hell I’m going with him, and I, like,”—she smiles, she can charm her way through anything—“really don’t want to, so I have to keep him here, too.”

Rem isn’t listening, doesn’t understand, couldn’t feel a human thing like this, this physical ache, lit deep in her throat and burning up the rest of her. There is nothing for Misa but devotion, devotion is what keeps the ache in check, keeps it from destroying her, consigning her eternally to her bed, her shuttered windows, grey evenings, grey mornings, flashbulbs, magazine covers, it’s all a blur, it’s all meaningless, and this here is what every girl past fifteen longs for: meaning. She has a quest and a purpose, somebody belongs to her, even if he doesn’t want to. 

But Rem, Rem doesn’t understand.

“I’m sorry, Misa,” and she is, she is, maybe, but her selflessness is selfish, she’s just doing what _she_ thinks is best, hypothermic hands holding her locked to her chest, swimming through the black hall toward the stairwell, sorry, so sorry, and she’s not really sorry yet, but she’s gonna be. 

Misa is a screamer when she’s not stock still, and she does what she can do and howls. “Let me go, let me go, let me go! Somebody help me! Light, Light! Help me!” 

Rem puts her hand over her mouth, and Misa thrashes, biting at her fingers, too intimate, she feels amphibian, she feels like the swamp ghosts that Mama believed in, and she rattles Misa until her voice trips up and her bones twist loose inside of her, fibula swapping for tibia, skull tilting sideways, there’s something here with them, there’s something in the black and it smells like heaven.

“You can’t have her,” Rem shouts to whatever is fizzing there, catching slowly alight, long stick of hungry dynamite.

A voice, not human, garbled and slick and whispery, blows in from the other end of the hall as Rem starts moving backwards: “I’m here to help you.”

Of all things, it is definitely not Light. Misa’s struggle fades into a cling, and now she can think of no greater terror than being put down, tiny fingers digging into Rem’s recently rejected skin. She wants to fight, she wants to protect, but she has no notebook, no eyes, just plain brown like she was born with, and there is something horrible here with rows of teeth and lullabies between them, and it wants to sing her to sleep, and it wants to eat her.

“Oh my god, oh my god,” Misa breathes.

“Shhh.” Rem’s lips are in her hair. The hallway is getting warm and Misa tries not to think of hellfire, tries not to think at all, just stay very still and hide under the bed and wait for the bad things to leave you, small and ashamed, in their wake.

“I’m here to give you back your book,” the voice says, and then the view skitters, everything hazes up for a moment and begins to glow, and then there is someone there, something slim and delicate and for all the gaseous unease of the moment, shaped like a regular woman. “I thought I wanted to go home, but then I saw what’s seeing me, and they want to drag me back there, they want to punish me just for existing. It’s not my fault—fault—fault.” She skips, like a scratched CD, jerks a little, flies out of proportion, grows wings, grows claws, shakes, shivers, then ceases, woman again. “I was made. You chose.”

Misa’s shaking her head, her body is cold, her hands feel disconnected from the rest of her, like accessories she’d strapped on. Her pen-fingers are searing, icy, but she can’t grasp the pain, she can’t tell if she’s really feeling it at all or if her body is in a state of lock-down, brought on by fear. Rem’s holding her so tightly. Rem is afraid, too. 

“Get away, Abomination,” she whispers, thinly, she cannot lie at all.

“Sister, sister, there’s nothing you can do to me. I’m nothing that has been before or will ever be. I am sacred. I don’t bend to your name games. I don’t do it by hand; he gave me claws.” 

“You’re well-documented. You’re well known. Your kind used to run rampant on the earth, before the Great Below enforced stricture upon the couplings of humans and gods.” 

“Not me, not me. That’s big brother. I can taste it in him, two halves, equal weight, the dead and the living, but I am not any of that. I was born to a couple in Wiltshire, Mary and Leroy Markovitch, I played in daffodil fields, I went to college, I baked banana bread, I loved things and I was loved. I died loved. Your soul escapes your body, you know, when you die, and floats above it like a mist, and slowly spreads out, sweeping over everything, silent, forgiven, and at peace. At least, that’s how it was for me. I wasn’t conscious of it at the time, but looking back, I think I was the weather. I think I was a light drizzle over London and I fell into the soil and I grew into the plants, the grasses, the parks, I was a tree, I was a hillside. Then I was in my body again, and I was starving, and I moved all wrong and I slept, I slept and I dreamed of the little boy in the old house, and the other boy in the biggest room, and the storms, the creek water, the mud, the silence when he went away. There’s a part of him in me. I am not myself, myself is dead, I am the otherworld’s. I heard crying from above me and the otherworld asked me to do what it does, and I made death. Violent crime. People die every day. He killed them on my grave. I might never have come out if he hadn’t. It was a chance mistake. It was anyone, any moment. I crawled up and I killed them both because the blood asked me to. I don’t want to go to hell, I want to go back to the hillside.”

Misa is confused about the words, the flow of them all, and the voice that says them, the growl unfurling with each syllable to end girlishly, soft, if viperous, but a person’s voice. _Hell_ is said by a woman, standing naked at the end of the hall, warm golden light spilling off her in thick clouds, like a dust storm in an office building. As she moves, the air around her blurs and sharpens, like a camera out of focus, and if Misa blinks she sees teeth and terror on the insides of her eyelids, wings, hair long and knotted, monster, monster come to catch her.

“Misa,” Rem almost growls, protective—if Misa is the shield then Rem is the shield’s shield—moving backwards.

“Rem.” Misa is quivering. She has no weapons, she only fights with words anyway, and how do you kill a thing like that? Eden straight out of the garden. Eden coming straight for her throat. “Rem, _run_.”

Rem doesn’t run; she flies, and she flies fast, but the light moves faster.

 

—

 

The green fog has faded out, so that it’s now only a tint, and they move like soldiers, shoulder-to-shoulder, down the stairwell, checking in on each floor for any sign of life, or death, or the unspecified cosmic intermingling of same. B hops ahead, taking the stairs three at a time, and whistling, so as to tip every semi-sentient creature—eyeball or nostril or what have you—off to their approach, and Light can only wait two impatient minutes for L to shut him up before realizing it isn’t going to happen, and snapping, “Please, _stop_.”

B dribbles his bare feet down the last few steps to the landing between floors, where he settles, jutting his head to the right so that his neck twists at an odd angle. He looks just as deformed and dastardly as Light is sure he intendeds to.

He says, glancing between the two of them, “Not that I’m counting my chickens or my ducks or anything of the sort, but I sent Jeepers Peepers after Sadie with a pretty detailed suspect description, so I figure either it finds her and drags her down to play in the red hot flames, or else she gets wise and runs for the hills, in which case the eye will go on after her and we’re all in the clear. It’s a win-win. You’re welcome. We can go celebrate with drinks.” He winks, he is pure caricature. “L’s buying.”

L blinks mildly at that, the bulk of him still apparently unconscious on the hallway floor.

“Or,” Light says, disgusted that he has to talk to B like an equal, that his partnership with L has suddenly grown a third leg, a bum leg—one of those genetic deformities that one, if one has wealth and sense, gets amputated—“and here’s where I’m putting my money: you both have suffered some kind of communal psychotic break and we’re even more doomed than we were before.”

B’s breath is hot and he moves too fast, between shadows, to stand a step down but eye-level with Light and grit in his face, “You don’t have any money, Kira. You’re awaiting trial. Your assets have been frozen.”

Light doesn’t even get time to dredge up a punishing one-liner in response, because L is more awake than he pretends to be, stronger than he looks, and he grabs B casually by back of his collar and pulls him down the stairs again like a misbehaving dog, away from Light, his new favorite chew-toy. “No, they haven’t,” he mumbles. “There will be no trial. He’s as good as convicted.”

That’s not a difficult reality to contend with, has always been the state of things, as long as he has known L and L has known him, but the way that he says it, the indifference, the calm, the low voice he uses to speak to B and B only makes Light rankle, makes him want to grab L by the scruff of _his_ neck and remind him just whose altar he’s been praying at all these months, whose eucharist he’s subsisted off, who has granted him indulgence upon and indulgence and washed him clean of every sin. 

Light is above jealousy, but it swims below him and he can see his reflection in it. He clears his throat. He will make noise until L looks at him and nowhere else.

“What?” L says, all too casually, glancing back at him as he pushes B on ahead, forward, forward, they’ve got a quest or some such nonsense. “It’s not like this is news. Who cares, anyhow? I’m with you on this one. We’re certainly all doomed. Seas boiling, heavens roaring, you heard what B said. The four horsemen are on their way and if we don’t sort this soon, the world will end, or something cliché like that.” He’s being facetious as ever, but there’s also the slim part of him, which hides in his jaw, in his finger bones—like a saint—that means it, that says: _this is all meaningless, take me to your prison, tie me to your bed, bring me breakfast, I’ll show you the wasteland._

Light has seen the wasteland.

“Oh, have a little faith, will you?” B chirps, squirming out of L’s hold to dance his way to the doorway, a heavy metal thing, one and then another, and they keep on looking, but what are they even looking for?

“I’ll have no such thing.”

L’s haughtiness is overtaking his apathy.

”I told you, I took care of it.”

“And what,” L snaps, suddenly fully awake, blurring back into focus, “if Sadie does escape, and elude capture, at which she has thus far proven herself immensely proficient, and goes back to terrorizing the children of Tokyo for obscure and convoluted reasons, then is it still a win for us? What if this really all does upset whatever tenuous axis reality is sitting on, and our world is sent spinning into the void? Are we fine with that?”

“Of course not,” Light supplies, because he doesn’t think B’s answer is one that either of them want to hear. But maybe it would do L some good, maybe if he heard the full bark he’d decide to put the dog down, or failing that—as any attempts at such have been more or less futile—stop treating it like it’s human.

B rolls his eyes, stands on his hind legs. “If I could just get her to sit still in a room with me for a while, I could talk some sense into her.” 

“You couldn’t talk sense if your life depended on it,” Light grunts.

B lunges at him again, stopping short so as not to invite L’s ire, no doubt. “The Watcher—that’s what it called itself—wanted to take me away to the underworld with it, and I talked it out of that, didn’t I, pretty? And try to remember that, unlike the rest of you, I’m not in any actual danger.” He looks at L then, attention dragged inevitably back to the skinny thing in the dirty clothes. “In case the dozen or so bullets I’ve eaten in the last twenty-four hours didn’t make it clear yet, this is a public service announcement: I’m fucking immortal.”

“Yeah, let’s talk about that for a moment, shall we?” L says, dry, derelict, and more than a little annoyed. “You’re immortal. You’re some otherworldly god-like, godless Shinigami hybrid creature, am I correct?”

“The Watcher called me an Abomination.” B looks perfectly pleased with the title.

“More than apt. And you’ve been this, what? Always?” L scrubs at his hair, slumping down the stairs to poke his head into the 19th floor hall and, finding nothing of interest, ducking back in. “That’s how you knew my name when we were children?” He doesn’t look at B and he doesn’t wait for a response. “Christ, I always thought it was just a wildly brilliant intellect and the kind of research and deductive abilities that I couldn’t have imagined having at that age. I thought you were really this enormously brilliant genius. I was goddamn terrified of you, in the beginning, sure that you would usurp me. Why did you think I told them to send you back to the streets? It wasn’t just the weird touching, after all. I had a fairly strong stomach for the indecent even at that age. There I was, jealous as all hell, and you—you’re just a big cheater.”

B’s grin is spreading, macabre, hellish—he looks like Bosch’s _Garden of Earthly Delights_ personified in semi-human form—but it drops at that. “What?”

“You have magic powers,” L says. “I did and continue to do everything on pure grit.”

He’s right, in a way, but his superiority is stifling, and even though Light loathes to make an ally of B, he prioritizes antagonizing L as of higher importance. So he tells him, “Everyone is born with a different set of tools innately at their disposal. Your photographic memory is just as much of a cheat as the ability to, what, automatically know names? That power is totally useless without the Death Note.”

L laughs, a weird sort of effusive comedy infecting him, infecting the room, because his mood becomes theirs and his whims are what sustains them, and no one man should be able to have so much power without even washing his hair or tying his shoes. “You would defend him,” he tells Light, “being the ultimate cheater. A magic killer notebook is about the cheapest cop-out weapon I can think of.”

Light’s heard this one before, and he’s only insulted at being placed on the same tier as B, who says, gripping L’s humor with his skeletal hands, “I think it’s kind of neat.”

Light glares at him. “Please get off my side.”

“As far as I’m concerned,” L says, chewing at a hang-nail on his pinky, “we’re all on our own sides, but they need to be dispensed with at present. As I said, I don’t trust either of you, and I am not going to be lenient in future, but you also have far more knowledge and experience with the otherworldly than I do or could. If we want to get out of this with everyone alive and intact, let’s quit squabbling and go find Misa, before she gets eaten by your dead girlfriend.”

Light knows what he’s trying to do, realizes he’d spoken up in the first place with the intention to. He’s uniting them in an odd way, insisting upon a connection—the Note, the eyes, their relative position in regards to L—that is supposed to force him to accept that having B as a good dog on a leash is vastly preferable to the hound chomping at his heels. He wants to take his two opposing forces and combine them, make a weapon out of what was once romance. He’s using them, and Light boils quietly with discomfort.

Alternately, B seems tickled by the manipulation. He bats his eyelashes, and coos, “He started it.”

“And what exactly do you think is going to make me want to help you at all if you’re telling me I’m bound for execution in the end, no matter what I do?” Light asks him, disguising his aggression behind resignation. 

L keeps walking, makes transient eye contact, doesn’t take it seriously. “I didn’t say execution, I said conviction. I haven’t yet decided what I’m going to do with you, or if your usefulness outweighs your flight risks. I’ve thought about taking away the Note and your memories with it, but I think you’ll be a little too for me dull without your murderous intentions. I really have no idea right now, and I’m trying not to think about it.”

That rankles, and he’s not sure which part most of all, only that he is excessively casual, that either he is hiding his torrential emotion on the subject, or has, in classic fashion, disguised it so well that it’s become lost somewhere in the folds of him, and Light will have to dig down and drag it up again, and wrap him in it, and chain him to the air conditioner.

B says, jaunty as ever, “I’ve got two words for you: sex slave.”

L, who has never missed a beat in his whole miserable life, unblinkingly responds, “We’ve been there.”

Light, uneasy, itching for his Note, the gun, any source of power, nods. “Done that. It gets old quickly.”

  

—

  

Quake, boom. This is one of those times when the world could end. They come along through a flash and a fever, they come along through other people, sometimes, or—as in this case—other worlds.

Misa is who they’re looking for, and Misa they find, flying out of the tunnel with Rem behind her, beside her, on her. It’s hard to tell, it’s a blur, it’s all glowing different colors and things that aren’t feel real. L’s own melodrama is small in comparison to the vast cosmic debacle that’s being enacted here and now, in real time, the most recent moment in history, if time is in fact linear, if it is anymore than a construct, a series of presents perceived and organized by consciousness. He is small beside existence expanding in all directions. He is one of the most powerful men in the world, but only this world.

Light grabs him by the arm, bony fingers, self-preservation. B runs forward.

If ever there is a cataclysm, B runs forward. He does not withdraw, he does not assess, he does not plan his way around possible outcomes, and he does not fear death. L doesn’t, either, tells himself he doesn’t, and asks only the question, behind every question: what next? What, if anything?

Light fears death. He is afraid now, and L takes his hand—jittering, jittering, small heartbeat—and how laughable, how embarrassing to admit, the unwavering care that L feels for him, whatever respective state of captor and prisoner they find themselves in at each given moment. Light’s palms are sweaty, he could never have been a supermodel. He is built upon fear of death, his life’s work springing from fear of evil, and yet here he embodies both, eighteen years old, far too young to have any properly formulated identity as of yet, but he has those two things, and he has L’s hand.

“Light!” Misa calls toward them, voice flying with her, shaky and careening, a silken windy thing in a hospital gown—he has Misa, too, even if he doesn’t want her; she cannot be dispensed with—and as B passes her, galloping toward the light, into the terror, he calls, in the moment that they are transitorily parallel, “Nice ride!” suggesting, in the same vein as the rest of his muddled Shinigami magic, that he can see Rem. Then he’s past them, Misa jerking her head around to watch him for a half second, before she turns back. “Light. Light! I knew it! I had to come back and save you!” 

“I’m fine, Misa,” he says, dropping L’s hand to go to her, and he is not cold, he is in a singular expression and tone of voice for once the sweet prince that she tries to disguise him as, consigned with a longing for the familiar through the trauma of the foreign. “What are you running from?”

L puts the same question another way: “What is he running towards?”

B turns a corner and the light bends with him, following him, shadows in reverse, and L has nothing left to him but to turn that corner also, and to see what is waiting, with teeth and tongue, the mouth of hell, like the old medieval caricatures, yawning and hungry, and maybe it will be just like the stories Father Gregory read to him as a boy, God’s kingdom a thing made flesh, and the devil alive and suffering, as in Dante’s hell, or many-limbed and wicked, as in Tundal’s. More likely, it will be nothing so saccharine, nothing previously conceptualized, but a universe the scope of which cannot be measured, a night unlike their night, a night painted in orange, in green. Beyond Birthday belongs in such a world, perhaps, but L doesn’t want him to go just yet.

He’s not sure if he moves, or if Light simply reads the intention on his face, because he’s deserted Misa—inevitably, endlessly a disappointment—to block L’s path. 

“Don’t go after him,” he says. He’s not even looking at the sparks, the torrent that engulfs. “He doesn’t need your help. He’ll live.”

“It’s not worry,” L sniffs, a little undermined by the supposition that he intends to be B’s savior, a little uncomfortable with how deftly it strikes the nail on its head, “it’s curiosity. And even if he can’t die, there’s a good chance he’ll piss off the otherworldly powers enough to get himself carted off to hell, or whatever the nondenominational equivalent is.”

“And you expect to do what to the Shinigami henchmen? Wag your finger at them? Hit them with a life sentence? A gun’s not going to do shit against something that powerful.” Light’s jaw is stiff as he speaks and he is virulently afraid. “We should go to the roof with the rest of them, regroup at a safe place, and plan our next move from there. Sadie has to be stopped, but if B’s right—and it pains me to say those words—then the other realm, realms, whatever, might just do our job for us. If not, then we figure out a way to take her down, later, once we’ve all gotten out of here alive.” 

He thinks of nothing but preserving his own life. He understands sacrifice only as an offering to a god, something to be given him, not possibly a thing that he could give. He is selfish and he is small and B is vicious, has more blood, blood everywhere, and ligaments, tissue, vertebrae, but he gives everything of himself in each passing moment, brush with death, brush with life, he is a sacrifice. L owns him. All he has of Light is what he has taken, locked up, and held fast to.

He is disgusted, and unafraid, and _annoyed_.

“Yes, and I’m sure you won’t take your first moment outside of this building to make your daring midnight escape?” he snaps, brushing past so that their shoulders knock heavily.

Light stumbles, and makes a grab for his arm. “You’re really worrying about that at a time like this? Do you think Kira matters more to me than stopping this monster?”

Misa is watching them, L knows. Light’s hand on him and L’s lip curling, disgust, disgust, hold onto the bile it will keep you from folly, and he supposes she wonders if that’s true, if Light will set his vision aside for any interim, as if there is anything more important.

L knows the answer. He says, “Kira matters more than anything to you. Your life matters more than anything to you.”

Light rolls his eyes, he looks hectic, and his grip on L’s skin ramps up to a jerk. “Which is why I want to get out of here, so I don’t lose it. So you don’t lose yours.”

L is sickened by what a lie it is, and even more sick with the truth. Light is not his savior, he has never been anyone’s, and in his head it must paint like a mural upon the wall of this moment, his heroism, his love, la-dee-da, how fucking picturesque, except it’s hollow, it’s hostile, he is grabbing at L with a child’s hands. He doesn’t need a protector, though, he needs a warrior. He needs a god of wrath, of fire, he needs all of the otherworldliness the Death Note has instilled in him to rise torrential and rain upon them like heaven’s deluge.

He doesn’t need Light Yagami in this moment, he needs Kira. He doesn’t need love, he needs justice.

 

—

 

Sadie’s gone all rabid. She’s not half the charmer she used to be and she puts her hand through his sternum besides. Just fades in, like a cheesy 90’s ghost, except her can feel her fingernails in his ribcage, clawing at his heart, the blue veins and all that viscera, and he thinks he’d like to see it in her hands, like to see just what he’s made of, but before it gets out in the air he’s lost his patience for the searing pain and he’s trading one sin in for another. He grabs her by her Miss Britain hair and kisses her like the Dickens, like every hero kisses every heroine, like he’d kiss L if they had that kind of story with that kind of ending, but there is no ending, that’s the funny part, there’s just cycles and cycles and new villains to old stories. In the first round she was the saint, the purest sacrifice and he bathed in her blood like one of the classicals at the Bacchanalia. Next he bathed her in his blood, and made her a rising god like him, and now she’s here to bring him down to the grave dirt they made her eat, as if that was his fault. If it’d been up to him, he would have cremated her, but Sydney would never hear it.

She kisses back. He thinks she must have missed him, like a butterfly misses its chrysalis. She had any manners, she’d thank him for the good turn he’d done her.

“Oh, Sadie, Sadie, Sadie.” He’s riled. Her body’s all wrong, flitting in and out of focus, and if he looks good and hard he can see her true form, her rotten corpse, her bulging red eyes and her melancholia, dastardly and warm, and her skeleton seeping all in his marrow. She’s almost him, this monster girl, this heartfelt beast, and that turns him on a little. “You’ve made such a mess and now the holy things are cross with you. Why did it have to be little kids, huh? Why couldn’t you kill investment bankers or something? That would have been far more forgivable.” 

She bites him. He bleeds into her and it’s still the cycle, only sped up and in real time, him into her and her into him, until they are just the same creature, with two heads and two hearts and no will but to destroy itself. He would like her to strip him down so that his body can be on her body. He remembers her in softer shapes. He remembers her without all the poison. She sucks and sucks his blood until he’s sure he turns blue and then he smacks her in the face. 

She shuffles back, light dimming, shoulder blades jutting, she has wings but they’re shrunken, malformed, not quite a monster and not quite human, just like him. He’s never ever known a thing that was just like him before. L is what he’d molded himself after, but only because he’d known that the real thing was all wrong, and needed to be carved out and replaced with the closest thing to mortal perfection he could find.

Sadie hits him back and it’s like a punch from something twice the size that she looks, and a lot more angry than she has any right to be, considering what a favor he did her. B falls flat against the wall. He thinks he wouldn’t mind if mortal perfection came around the corner and gave him a hand right about now.

“I was the long night,” she tells him, in a voice that rings in his head, so quiet, a voice that speaks through her nails and hair, dead cells, it’s all dead cells, and he wants to kiss her again. 

“You still are,” he breathes up at her. He wonders where his wings are, and if he could grow them this late on in life if he tried. 

She shakes her head, hits him again, so hard that his nerves jam up, piling altogether, and it hurts, it hurts like nothing has ever hurt him, and his head sings French choral music, and his body fumes and pulses, and Sadie says, “You woke me. I want to go back to sleep. B, B, B. Put me back in the ground. I want to go back.” 

Her teeth are all sharp, shark-like, there are rows of them, and he knows she is afraid of the other world, the one below, the one that demands her, but she must know she’ll be happier there, like a fish set back in water, existing on a plane which her being understands. He has never been allowed such a luxury. He won’t let them take him, because he has something to stay for, but all that’s left here for here is Syd back in London, and he’s a waster, he’s too simple to know her if he saw her. He’s not worth the effort of remaining.

“You’re going to go home,” he tells her. He’s trying to be comforting, but it’s not a speciality. The wounds on his face which would normally heal are being held open by her hand. He’s not sure, but she might be crying.

“I don’t, I don’t. The thing that’s meant to take me isn’t human at all. I’m _still_ human. I have to think about it. I have to work hard, but just because I’m corrupted doesn’t mean I’m the corruption. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t.”

She’s more mad than she’s ever been. He takes her hand, slowly, slowly, brings it to his mouth and kisses the back. His mouth is filled all with flies, he thinks, like the devil’s, and he will lull her to sleep and she will get what she wants, he thinks.

Then the green light comes.

 

—

 

The lights around the corner are fading. L is missing the climactic showdown, or maybe _this_ is the climactic showdown. He shoves, and Light stumbles back, and he keeps shoving, because it will work, it will move the immovable, it will get him to rage the way that L needs him to. 

“You understand that you cannot run, don’t you? There is nowhere for you to go. I was hoping to keep the matter hushed, to not make a martyr of Kira in front of the stage of the world, to put a beautiful face on death and fan the flames of fringe fanaticism growing in this country and across the world, but I will if I have to. If you escape, I will plaster your mugshot across every television station, newspaper, and online bulletin, and for every Kira supporter there are at least ten people who view you as a tyrant, or a threat. You will be hunted, and you will be found. I will not let you out of my sight, whether I see you to the execution chamber or not. Even if you live, your life will be nothing like it was before, and you will be granted no freedom, no liberty, and no peace.” He bares his teeth, he feels sickly, and little bit proud. He doesn’t know if he’s telling the truth, but it doesn’t matter. “Still don’t want to see me dead?”

Light pushes him then, towards the corner, and there it goes, off they go, towards rapture, or annihilation. “I do see you dead,” he snaps, he looks pained. L knows how to pain him. “For every memory I have of you, in beds, in parking lots, from across the street as they dragged me away, I have another one of you dead, conjured in the same moment. Every time I look at you, I think of ways I could kill you, but I never have. I always save you at the last moment, and if you die for this, for _him_ , do you know how much time I’ll have wasted on preserving your sorry life?”

He hates L in this moment. He rocks so easily in between emotions.

“Then I guess you’ll just have to follow me, and keep me from harm, won’t you?” L tells him, and it’s all going swimmingly, or it’s all going horribly, and it doesn’t matter which because Light’s fists are balled and he wants to fight.

“Or, more likely,” he spits, “we’ll both die.”

He grins a little, then, and L matches the expression, and maybe it should be an agreement but L feels, in the short moments he is allotted to feel anything at all, that they are not looking at one another, but reflections of themselves, and they are each seeing different things, and drawing different lines, and painting different views of paradise. His is earthly and grey and still, like this building would be if they were the only people in it. Light’s, he believes, but cannot know, is more frenzied, warmer, and fully saturated. The apple is so ripe it drips when you bite into it, gets your mouth, your fingers, your neck sticky, makes your head buzz like a drug, and leaves you feeling hungrier than before once you’ve eaten it.

These opposing principles are something that they should sort out, but there is no time now. Light marches on past him and L decides he’ll save his lecture for the prison cell.

Misa is not nearly so discerning. “You can’t,” she squeaks, brittle, breathing heavy, and shakes in Rem’s grip until she is set down, like a cat who cares nothing for the affections of her owner. “Light, we have to _go_. She’s not like a criminal, she’s not like anything.” She grabs at him and he shakes her off, not even looking back at her. He is set now on finding the battleground and coloring it with his fallible hand, and everything else has become hollow and peripheral. “There’s nothing you can do, you or L,” she cries, and then, as if encompassed by the force of his rage, and feeding her own with it, “and I—if you two die, then I’m dying with you.” 

Ever the third wheel. “Your bravery is admirable, Misa,” L says, “but I’m sure Rem won’t allow it.”

She doesn’t wither like she should. “Rem doesn’t control me. Light doesn’t control me. And _you_ certainly don’t control me. I get a say, and I get a choice, and I get to fight if I wanna fight, and there’s nothing any of you can do to stop me. If Rem wants to keep me alive, she’s got to keep all of us alive. After all, she still has her Death Note. Right, Rem? The monster took mine, and,”—

“Mine’s still at my apartment.” Light interrupts, but he’s stopped, he’s listening to her in a way that he surely doesn’t ever. He looks to L, a slant of sullenness drenching his vigor for a moment. “Unless you had those cops who took me loot the place for it?”

He shakes his head. “As if I’m going to let anymore civilians touch that thing? Not likely. I was planning to go get it myself, when things were all sorted. I still will.”

Light’s expression wrinkles, and he snaps, “Things are going to be a lot harder to _sort_ without a proper weapon, but yes, excellent thinking, very tactical. We’re all going to be sucked into hell, but thank god Takashi at headquarters won’t be able to see Ryuk floating around. I’m so glad your priorities are straight as ever.”

L feels that he may have inadvertently made himself too much the enemy. He sighs, shakes off the insult, and mumbles, “Rem, will the Note be at all useful in killing or deflecting these things? A Death Note can’t harm a Shinigami, as far as my understanding extends?”

Light breathes something about that not being, “very far at all,” that L chooses to politely ignore, and which is drowned out besides by Rem’s lofty, and altogether more pertinent, drone.

“The Abomination is trying to return the Notebook to Misa,” she says, gliding in between Light and Misa to serve as a sort of protective barrier. “It seems to believe that the Watcher, called Grigori by the human religions which have no true concept of its power, has been sent here to take it—her, I think it was once a human woman—to the Below, because it is the unspeakable, but that it will become confused by the breadth of Misa’s association with True Death, and take her instead, as it can see only the imprint of the otherworld upon her humanity, and confuses such commingling with the unholy crossbreed that is a true Abomination.” 

The lights are further off, and B is far away by now, chasing them, catching them, maybe swallowing them up and holding them in himself. He will glow, perhaps, when L finds him, if L finds him. He says, “So, what you mean is that any human who has used the Death Note is in danger of being mistaken for this Sadie and taken away by the celestial clean-up crew in her place?”

Rem nods. “Essentially. The more exposure to the Note, the more danger.”

L looks to Light, expects to find his fear ignited again, but what he is is cold, locked down, and if he is panicking it is behind doors that he has structured out of every hateful thing that L has ever said to him, and every fated right to rule that he has ever designed for himself. He says nothing.

L says it for him, glancing from Light to Misa, “So, then, perhaps the two of you _should_ leave.”

“Suddenly concerned for my safety?” Light is glowering, but it’s diminished. He’s looking at something far away, something shimmering that L can’t see, and L is afraid of he knows not what, only that it is coming, it is almost here, it is—

Just around the corner. 

“Yes,” he tells Light, because it is the honesty that will hit him most. “Don’t gloat about it. Go. I’m giving you my leave. Run away if you must. I’ll catch you and cage you back up later. As long as you’re on Earth I’ll know how to find you. _Go."_  

“I don’t need your permission,” Light says with even-toned hostility, but he’s not going, he’s not going anywhere and L will realize shortly after that he should have made him, that this is the moment where he has to save him, but he doesn’t, not then. Light pushes past him, past Misa, toward the fury.

“Light,” Misa starts, thinly, and then drops off, little shoulders hiking up, little girl in her hospital gown, her hair flat and unwashed over her shoulders, make-up long faded or smudged into blurry grey shapes beneath her eyes. She looks at Light’s back and then she looks at L, as if she is feeling the moment, too, as if she knows the words he should be saying as well as he doesn’t. 

“I’m staying,” Light continues, and he’s faded into the cutting shadows so that only the bottom half of him is visible, and his feet are planted firmly forward, and he was always going to live within the war, since the first moment he picked up that fucking book. “I’m going to find Sadie, and I’m going to destroy her, Notebook or no Notebook. Anything that wants to drag me off this plane and into the next is very welcome to try. Now, are you coming?” 

L doesn’t waver. He’s missed all his lines. He misses the weight of Light’s cheek under his fist, the resistance, and denial, and bone. He walks after him. He has never had a death wish, he has only had a fantasy, and the face of this fantasy leads him around the corner on bare feet.

 

— 

 

For the eye to see, it must need to be in its empty place, because here, out in the world, with the halls, and the linoleum, and the blown fluorescents, it is only a blur, a misting gaseous thing, like bad vision. It speaks with the same voice, and B hears it in his head the same way Sadie must hear it in her’s when she shudders, flickers out of definition and across the hall, making gashes in the green light which thickens into almost globulous reality, semi-solid, like a membrane.

_Cease. Twice is the profane in this space of matter, but indistinguishable. Be still so you might be held in judgement and known._

B is still, B relaxes, lets not only his physical movements slow, but his inner vibrating diatribe of violence, devotion to violence, devotion, devotion. He lets it still, lets it be seen. He has, for once, nothing to hide. He sees the hallway before him and then it switches, fading fast into the black wasteland and the Watcher that judges, then back again with sickening velocity, as if he is being plucked up and thrown down again at first glance. He unlearns his stillness, stands up, and understands why.

Sadie is dodging, she is not still, she is rattling her cells out of the quietude that the Watcher needs in order to pick her up and look at her, and she does it knowingly, instinctively. Those are his own instincts she has, B thinks, and grins, and is proud, even as he hopes she’ll trip up, fall and be caught and carried off. No hard feelings, but he refuses to go in her place, and he’d really rather the world not end just yet.

 _Cease_ , the eye demands, but she doesn’t. 

B runs after her, skipping, Sunday hopscotch, it’s all a game and he’s a runner, he’s got springs, but she shivers out of his fingertips and across the room, unforming and reforming for a millisecond as a woman, Eden, the garden made flesh. She doesn’t wanna go home, but’s somebody’s gotta. 

“Slow, baby, slow!” B calls into the filmy breadth of the hallway, but she doesn’t speak back, of course. Her voice would make her too solid, and able to be caught. “Sadie, listen,” he tries, can appeal to the human side if not the darker one, “why do you wanna stay in this world, anyway? It’s not so grand, you know. Everybody dies here, except you and me. Your mom, your dad, your brothers and sisters. Hell, maybe you were an only child to begin with. Maybe that’s why you found me in that bar, and brought me home. Because you wanted a brother, wanted to have something that held you as you held it, not like Syd, Syd who you loved,”—careful, carful,—“love, but who you owned. You still own him. But he’ll die, too. You wanted something equal to the torrent you felt inside of you, so you took me home and you died in front of me, showed me something sacred, so I showed you the same. We’re just like brother and sister now. I’m the only thing on this plane that can understand you, and you know it.”

It’s getting hard to move, the matter is so thick, it’s hard to breathe, the whole place is swamped in it, the elsewhere, the visions of the sacred made fleshy, vile, and real.

He hears them coming around the corridor, they’re arguing, and he only has one moment before the humans come and muck it up. He says to her, “But I’m not the only thing in the universe that can. All your brothers and sisters live down there, die down there, and if you go then you won’t be alone, you’ll be understood.” He’s not sure he believes it. She’s a halfsie, just like him, she’ll never fit anywhere, but he says it because he’s never advertised honesty as one of his virtues.

He thinks it’s going to work, even if she doesn’t want to go, because she stops, she settles, just long enough to say, “I don’t want to be understood. I want to be forgiven,” and it should be enough, it should be all the time that the Watcher needs to pluck her up, and it is, he can feel its strength, its ferocity, the hunger, the hunger, but—

It misses. The scene’s all mucked up, more bodies, more matter, spreading the vaporous green ocean thin with their life, their voices, solid footsteps, heavy things, they blur the image and Sadie slips out of reach, becoming again indistinct.

 _Too many, too much. Cease, cease, cease!_  

The Watcher is suffering with the complications and B spins fast, is going to bark at them, measly little earthly things, ruiners, they chase away the dark with pitchforks and torches, they scream at the ghosts, they pray to idols with no ears and think they will be heard, and they ruin him, they tear at his skin, they lock him in white rooms for his sanctity and he is going to—

He doesn’t. He looks at L and he can see him, tinged green, tired and awake and ready to fight, an admiral, a judge, a boy in the wet English winter, who takes all of the grim horror of his humanity and holds it and names it and eats it and keeps it inside of him. B could never go. B could never leave him. Mortal perfection, mortal perfection, he’s not perfect at all, he is a terrible mess, and he will age ugly, or die young, and who will sing his eulogy, but B, but B? This is why he lives on earth, why he corrodes on earth. He is his eulogy singer, and he won’t let it end yet.

“Glad you all finally made it to the party,” he calls back to L, to Kira, to the smaller Kira, to the greying god. The party quivers with their entrance.

 

—

 

Light runs, so L runs after him. The whole place is turning old, changing shape, not the building he’d built in the first place, not a building, not a place, and not a concern, at the moment. It all moves too fast. B calls something sardonic and indistinct at them but it blurs in the space between and settles outward. The sounds L hears are too long and far apart to make any sense.

“Stay back, I’m saving us,” Light bites at him and, if the audience will believe it, shoves him, full force, still angry, or, less likely, out of some protective instinct which he’s just grown in the last five minutes. Whatever the cause, it’s unexpected enough to send L stumbling sidelong, frowning, giddy with the placelessness, the pace, his steps skidding over a ground that flickers in and out of solidity. 

He hears it, played again and again like a skipping record, _You’re no god you’re no god you’renogodyou’renogod._ He can’t see the eyeball anywhere, can’t see Sadie, only mounting desiccation, and Light melting into the scenery. Rem flies past him. Misa is whispering something, or screaming, he can’t tell, he can’t breathe in here. He’s no god; he’s not like the rest of them. He’s never used the Death Note a single time in his life, has no splotch of any world but this one on him, and he’s not jealous, he’s not incensed, but he loathes to be safe, protected, held back from the fight. King in his ivory tower, sure, king behind a keyboard, but he comes out to play, he knows how to play, he knows how to win. 

He feels sickly and transparent. When he stumbles again, something catches him, holds him up. It’s not Light, but he can see Light, he hears the voice, booming, _Cease, cease, cease, cease! You’re obscuring the image!,_ and sees something burn up in the center, sees something move, the boy in hospital clothes and the naked woman, still in one instant, and Misa screaming and screaming, B’s hand on him, rigid, bonding, the only weighty thing in a room without gravity, and he shakes, he shakes, it’s happening, it’s coming. Quake, boom.

That’s the moment that he knows, for certain, and all he can think is how he should have seen it before, that look in him. But how could he have? Light has never before, in his whole sorry, stilted, beige life, done anything brave. L’s still not even sure this qualifies, or if it’s just for all that gold that he thinks he’s going to touch. 

 

—

 

He grabs Sadie. He’s not really sure how, he doesn’t have the strength, but he has the will, and she must feel it in him, how devout he is, how he deserves this. He has known since the moment he first saw the Death Note, held it in his hands, just a book, just paper, that he would get there one day. Heaven is built of paper, heaven isn’t real; this is.

He holds her, skin and bone, volleying between the two, he holds her and says, “Run. I’ll take your place,” and he smiles in the way that always gets the girls to do what he says. She smiles back. He can see into her throat and he can see bodies, amorphous, pulsing, visceral and small. He is disgusted, so he drains it. He is above emotion.

She disappears, and he feels nothing but the overwhelming glory he had called upon himself from the first name, when he yells, “I’m right here! Look at me, I’m right here!”

 

—

 

L can’t hear the words but he can feel them on his skin, little abrasions, microscopic jolts, _Take me with you_ , they say to the sky, the building is gone, they’re out in the desert, they’re in a swamp. Everything is glowing. None of the science fiction novels he’s read or will read can do it justice. It’s not something he can comprehend. _I’m the God you want_ , Light is yelling, his lips are moving, the words are vibrating, disconnected, as if through a modulator.

L tries to chase him, and B’s grip tightens on him. L is sickened. Somebody’s always trying to hold him still. He bucks, rabid, angry, so angry, and runs. It’s hard to move, heavier on him than it is any of them. He is not one inch a holy thing.

Misa’s running, too, and she gets there first, grabbing Light’s arm, but he just knocks her off without even looking, he isn’t looking at any of them. He’s staring up into what must look like salvation to him, and the eye, it’s here now, it’s staring back.

L opens his mouth and says nothing. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t touch him, he doesn’t try to stop him, he doesn’t miss him, he won’t miss him. He won’t miss him. Misa is crying, and scrabbling and fighting, messy thing, and Rem grabs her around the middle and holds her back.

 _I’m the God you want_ , everything of Light breathes up to his glorious purpose, his bright golden glowing shitshow, his stupid fucking kingdom finally fucking come. Pray for the sinners, yadda, yadda. L had grown up in a church. L had never once believed in God. 

Something shivers in the air, and Light finally looks away from the sky, and he smiles, the utter imbecile. It’s too fast, or it’s slow motion. Time doesn’t move right here, time doesn’t listen. He smiles at L and L just shakes his head.

He still doesn’t believe in God.

The room short circuits, everything gets very bright or very dark, or either way, he can’t see, he can’t hear, Misa’s gone quiet, it all has gone quiet, and when it all snaps back into being the place is a place again, just another grey building in the Tokyo skyline, everything is dark, simple, calm, and without glistening energy. Misa is gasping quietly. Sadie is gone, the Watcher is gone, and there is a body on the floor, the body of an eighteen year old boy, like any eighteen year old boy, anybody, just a body, empty, discarded.

 

—

**tbc.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no, this is not the end. i’ve still got a few long chapters and a time-jump left in me, if anything, and no, nobody is dead (so far), if that’s what you’re thinking, so don’t panic. i’ll try to update again within the month, but december is the busiest, if not as cruel as april, so we’ll see. thank you all for reading. any and all comments and critique are appreciated.


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